A Trickle of Time
by suki-megane
Summary: [FE7]The war with Nergal is over, and a new enemy wants revenge for what Eliwood's army has done. The tactician once said to herself that she wouldn't love again, but what if someone is making it hard for her to do that?[Female Tactician x Matthew]
1. Aftermath of the War

My first Fire Emblem fic! Wow, I never knew that I was going to make one of these. Oh well. N E ways, I know that there are a lot of other great ones out there. **And I thank you in advance for actually clicking on this story!** I had an inspiration to write this for some reason.

To tell you the truth, I haven't played the game in like 6 months or so, but I've played it about 2.5 times around, so I might've forgotten some names and things in the game.

For people who are wondering what the pairs are, there are various pairings in the story, but I'm not focusing on them too much. The pairing that I'm focusing on is: Female TacticianxMatthew. I know, I make the less popular and sometimes unusual pairs in my fanfics.

**Time Span?** Let's just say that from the start of Eliwood's/Hector's story, it's been about a year and a half. Yeah, that sounds like a good time. Oh well, I won't delay you anymore, here ya go!

**OH yeah! Disclaimer:** I do not own ANY of the **Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken** characters. They belong to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems.

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**Chapter I:** **Aftermath of the War**

Finally, it was over. Everything that they have been pursuing: the search of Eliwood's father, finding the legendary weapons, and defeating Nergal, had come to an end. Now that they defeated their foe, and ended the war with the dragons before it started, all they had to do now is go on with the normal lives they had before all of this. Every one was exhausted; of course they would be since they have been traveling for a long time, some more than others.

Eliwood thanked every single soldier on his army for staying with him through this journey. The one who he really was grateful of was the young tactician, who stayed with them from the beginning of it all, which was when they first were rescuing Rebecca's village from a bandit attack, as he remembered.

"I just can't thank you enough for helping us with our battle tactics. I don't think anyone else would have come up with better strategies than you, Caden."

"It was my pleasure, and honor, for serving you, Lord Eliwood. I couldn't be as grateful enough as being your tactician, since you were the one who asked me."

Eliwood was remembering the past: the time when he first met Caden. It was after the battle that they emerged victorious as Caden as their tactician. She said that she was traveling around, and Eliwood made a request to her to become his army's tactician. Now, he couldn't have been more thankful for her answer, as she kept every one alive this whole time, battle after battle.

"Well then, when there are other dangers, I'll be sure to ask you to be my tactician again."

Caden smiled and nodded of approval. Eliwood returned the nod and made his way through the rest of the army.

"I should have thanked Caden more for her hard work," he thought, "I should do something for her once we get back to Pherae."

Pherae, at long last he can come back to the castle, and to his mother. He has been traveling for so long and he couldn't wait to settle down back at his own home; of course, coming back wouldn't be the same though, not without that one person who has been in his life ever since Eliwood was born. He could never forget about his father, or what he did to spare his son. He shook that emotion aside; after all, this is a joyous event.

Lyn walked up to the tactician and thanked her as well.

"Caden, it was faith that brought us back together. I'm happy that I was able to see you again; it was a long time after you left when I first saw my grandfather. I thank you for your help back then, and I thank you for leading us to _this_ victory."

"Thank you, Lady Lyn. It was funny how we would travel again in the same army. I was happy back then when you were finally able to lay eyes on your grandfather, and I am happy now that this whole mess with the dragons will hopefully not become true."

"Haha, yes, you're right. There are so many things that I would like to thank you for, but then, I wouldn't know how to express all of it. To put it all together, I suppose, here's one expression from Lyn, not from 'Lady Lyndis,'" she said walking up to Caden and hugging her. Caden, at first thought, was surprised about Lyn's action, but then she put her arms around her too and said, "You're welcome" in the process.

Now that Caden was thinking of it, this was the first time that Lyn has ever hugged her. There was a time when she first departed that Lyn was looking like she was about to cry, but she didn't look like she felt like hugging her. All she remembers was Lyn waving goodbye and her watching as she went off.

Of course, the last lord to thank Caden was Hector. She really wasn't expecting Hector's gratitude to be as friendly as Lyn's or Eliwood's, but she knew that he has an original way of expressing himself… or not.

"Um…Caden, mind if I talk to you?"

"Sure, Lord Hector. _Already it shows that he's not used to saying 'thank you' to other people._"

"I want to thank you for being our tactician. I know I've already apologized for underestimating you, but I feel like I need to apologize even more."(1)

"Why, may I ask?"

"Because…even after I apologized, when that battle came up with the dragons, I thought that this war might have been a fiasco for us. But, again, you proved me wrong."

"_It's not as mean as I thought it would be. But, I guess it took HIM courage to tell that to me... Hector you lout. Well, you're not really a lout, but it's funny how it's hard for you to do simple things… like saying thank you._ I can understand why you would think of me different, but maybe you've learned something, not to label someone before you know them. Thank you for the apology, though."

"Hey, I've learned my lesson already! You don't need to tell me that. But… I… really wanted to thank you for all you did… for staying with us. So… thanks."

She let out a slight chuckle, "You're very welcome, Lord Hector."

Out of all the Lords, she felt like she knew Hector the least. Of course she knew Eliwood almost the same time that she met Hector, but she thought that Eliwood was friendlier, and easier to talk to.

There were more members of the army that walked up to Caden and thanked her for all her hard work, and Caden thanked them back for being such good fighters. She knew that some people weren't that way to thank people, and she didn't take them not showing their gratitude to her as a way that they didn't thank her for her duty.

Later that night, still on the Dread Isle, the army celebrated their victory. Fargus and his crew came along for the celebration as well. After all, they did participate and help his army along the way. Some members of the camp were musicians, and they played their instruments so their music would be heard. Nils was contributing to the band, and Ninian, as timid as she is, went with the rhythm of the music. Everyone was having a great time for now.

Sain, as usual, took this celebration as an opportunity to woo some of the ladies in the camp. Every time he would walk up to one, she would turn him down, which he was very used to by now coming from the ladies in the army. The one who Sain was real fond of, though, was the Pegasus knight, Fiora.

"Ah, lovely Fiora, may I have the pleasure to dance with you this evening? The stars are out and the music is playing; rather romantic, no?"

"_I guess accepting his offer won't hurt this time._ Sure, Sain. I'll dance with you."

Sain held out a hand and bowed slightly. Fiora took his hand and followed him near the bonfire. Once in her life, Fiora was having a great time. She was used to the strict life she had in Ilia and being a knight, but for right now, she was trying to forget her duties and her rank. Her sisters saw her dancing, and they thought that this was a new Fiora that they were seeing. Fiora was smiling and laughing, which was hard for even _them_ to witness.

Farina nudged her little sister to get her attention, "Hey, Florina, look at those two dancing."

"I know," Florina said smiling, "It seems that Sain has actually relieved her stress."

Nobody cared about each other's ranks today; they just felt like they needed to have a good time.

This adventure, for some people, developed love from one member to another in the army. Some others, however, were melancholy, one being the tactician.

In the beginning of the celebration and the lighting of the bonfire, Caden was there, but when everyone else was socializing, she left the group and sat idle on one of the stumps distant from the rest of them. She expected Karel to be away from the group as well. He seemed like the one who doesn't do any social activities she thought. She observed him for a little while, and she found him training by himself. Caden felt like walking up to him to start a conversation, but she had the fear that he might mistake her as an enemy and cut her down since it's so dark. She stayed where she was sitting watching as the other couples were arising from the group. She also saw that Lyn was sitting next to Rath watching the others dance. Hector… Hector didn't seem much like the person who would dance, but then again, Caden was proven wrong. She thought that Hector was more of the person who would spar and train anytime possible, she couldn't imagine Hector doing anything else but that. She chuckled at her thought.

For the rest of the time, Caden was replaying the battles the army fought and the tactics that she ordered everyone to follow. After all, making battle plans is her job.

"Hey, why aren't you enjoying yourself? This celebration is partly for you too, since you were the one who actually made this celebration happen," said a voice.

Caden looked to her right to see Matthew standing near her with his cheery demeanor.

"You mind if I sit down?"

"Go ahead."

"So, why do you look so glum? You should be happy about this. I know that if I were in your shoes, I would be out there, dancing and having a great time," he asked when he took his seat.

"You're right…I know that I should be like that. But…I'm not really accustomed to such a big group."

"You've been traveling with us since the beginning; that was ages ago. How can you not tell me that you're not used to this group?"

"Before all of this, I was usually by myself, traveling, gathering information, trying to be better than I already am. After battles, I would seclude myself and reflect on the battle. Right now, I'm reflecting on everything that I have done since the beginning, and I think of ways that I might have done things differently. Like if we would have gone here sooner, the first time we came, we could have saved Lord Eliwood's father… and Leila. I-I'm sorry, for bringing her up."

Matthew looked like he was in slight emotional pain, but he tried not to show it.

"No worries, Caden, the past is the past. I know I miss her, but she died for what was right."

"I can't just help that her death was partly my fault, though."

"Hey, don't be too hard on yourself. As I said, the past is the past."

"Hm…I guess you're right. You should enjoy yourself, Matthew. Thank you for the conversation, but I think I'll pass in the celebrating."

"Oh come now, are you saying that because you don't know how to dance?

"I… haven't danced in a long time. I don't think I'm that good. I don't want to embarrass myself."

"Dancing is not a skill… well, for most people it isn't. It's just moving with the rhythm. Any other complaints?"

She chuckled and went on, "I don't really want to dance… and…"

"…And?"

"I… don't have anyone to dance with."

"Well then, that's a problem easily solved," Matthew replied while he was standing up. He let out a palm in front of her, "Would you like to dance with me, Caden?"

Caden felt her face flush red, she was reluctant at first to accept his offer, but she was reconsidering what Matthew had just explained to her. She smiled and took Matthew's hand. Matthew was right, she did have a wonderful time participating. For right now, she tried to procrastinate her duties, which she was not used to doing.

Caden didn't think that she was that close to anybody in the army, with the exception of the lords, although she has been traveling with them for so long. She tried to have a little conversation with at least everybody, but some people were harder to talk to, so she failed that. Right now, she thought that she was starting to get to know Matthew better. She knew Matthew for almost three years, but she didn't get to talk to him most of the time. Now that this war was over, perhaps she'll be able to bond with him. Caden liked that Matthew was always so cheery, and he was very helpful with his dexterity. She was thinking that, during this whole journey, she grew a slight attraction to him. She thought of Matthew being her friend, not just an acquaintance, like most of the people here.

Many hours have passed since the beginning of the celebration, and everyone wanted to go back to their own homes. With the help of Fargus, they sailed through the sea separating the island and their continent, and arrived back at the port. From there, most of the army separated traveling back to their respective nations. Caden was about to break off from the group too, but then Eliwood asked her to come with him back to Lycia.

No big celebration was held for their return, no one minded. The three lords went back to their regions; Caden followed Eliwood back to Pherae.

Hector traveled back to Ostia, along with Oswin, Matthew, and Serra. Hector also lost someone during the journey, but his death wasn't involved with the war. He went back to the throne room again; but he already knew that what he wanted to see wouldn't come true. He didn't want to cry; he didn't want other people to see.

Lyn hurried back to her grandfather. She wanted to see if he was alright since the last time she saw him. She remembered that he ordered Lyn and a small army to escape the castle and leave immediately. She walked up to the stone pathway leading to the entrance of the castle.

"Lady Lyndis, you're back!" cheered one of the soldiers

"It's nice to be back home. Tell me, is my grandfather alright?"

"The steward knows more than we do. It would be best to ask him."

"Very well then."

She walked to her grandfather's bedroom.

"Lady Lyndis, it's nice to see you again," greeted the steward.

"Likewise, is Grandfather doing well?"

"The doctor said that he'll be completely fine. There were only a few cuts, but they weren't anything serious."

"Oh! Thank St. Elimine for this wonderful news!" (or do only Etruian people thank her?)

"His wounds have healed already. The doctor told him not to strain himself too much. It's perfectly fine if you would like to see him right now."

Lyn nodded her head okay and opened the door to her grandfather's bedroom.

"Grandfather?"

"Lyndis? Is that you?"

"Yes, it is Grandfather!" she answered while embracing him, "I'm so happy that you're still alive. I have so much to tell you."

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Once Eliwood arrived in Pherae, Rebecca and Wil went to her village. Everyone else walked up to the castle. There, Eliwood's mother was waiting for him near the entrance.

"I'm back, Mother."

"Eliwood! I'm so glad to see you again," she said embracing her son.

"So am I, Mother. This war is over, and I have avenged Father's death. Everything will be peaceful for the time being."

"I'm just glad that you're alright."

"Yes, I'm fine. It was all thanks to the people who accompanied us. But most of the thanks belong to this tactician, Caden. She kept us alive this whole time."

Eliwood's mother, Eleanora, looked at Caden with an approved smile.

"I thank you, Caden, for keeping my son and everyone else alive."

"It is an honor receiving a 'thank you' from you," she bowed.

The Pheraen soldiers settled themselves back into the castle. Caden followed Eliwood to wherever he was going.

"Lord Eliwood, may I ask you a question?"

"There's no need for formalities, you can just ask me. We're friends, aren't we?"

"Yes, you're right," she smiled, "Um… not to be rude or anything, but… why did you ask me to come back to Pherae with you?"

"I was thinking… that we may hold a celebration for you here, in Pherae."

"L-Lord Eliwood, you don't have to hold a celebration for me. I wouldn't want to be taking advantage of you."

"Nonsense," Eliwood replied, "I am the one who wants to hold it for you. Why are you acting timid all of a sudden?"

"I don't like big celebrations that much, I'm sorry. The celebration that we had on the Dread Isle was good enough for me. I like parties where I know everyone in the room. And um… if you haven't noticed already, Lord Eliwood, I'm shy when it comes to me seeing new people," she persuaded.

"Very well then, I will listen to your request."

"Thank you, Lord Eliwood, for understanding. I am grateful," she said bowing.

"Now, if you will excuse me, I must be catching up on the work I missed during this journey."

"Even when you're in war, a prince still has many tasks to work on, I see."

"Haha, yes you're right. I must be going now. You can go anywhere in the castle. Just enjoy your stay here."

"Thank you. Don't overexert yourself when you're studying," she said to him.

"I thank you for your concern," Eliwood said smiling to her. Caden smiled back and she felt that she was blushing.

--

End of Chapter I: Aftermath of the War

What other reason is there for Eliwood asking Caden to stay? Find out in the next chapter.

Yay! Chapter 1 is done! Thank you for reading through! Next chapter will be coming up… I don't know when, but please be patient.

Once again, I'm making my quota of about 3-5 reviews in order to continue… I know I kinda sound selfish… but it's just the way I am… heheh… sorry guys.

I think this is kind of a new writing style for me in a way… and a new mood… I hope you don't mind…

…FYI, the whole plot hasn't started yet… I guess you can call this the prologue or somethin'.

**Author's notes (the numbers correspond to the numbers in the story): **

1) If you haven't played through Hector's story he kinda apologizes for doubting you.


	2. Pherae

Um… well, I tried to go a different way with this Fire Emblem fanfic. There are a lot of… interesting pairings out there, and usually when I see the tactician paired up with a person, it's usually a male tactician paired with Lyn. At first I wanted my female tactician to be paired up with Eliwood, but then I thought, "What the hey." So… yeah, it's female tactician x Matthew. But that's not gonna happen until later… hopefully.

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**Chapter 2: Pherae**

When Eliwood left, Caden had no idea what to do now. For the time being, she walked around the entrance observing the different paintings and statues that were on the wall. She hadn't noticed most of them before; probably because she's only entered the castle once, and they only spent that one night.

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**Six months ago…**

Caden had too much on her mind to sleep. Instead of lying down on the bed for the rest of the time, she got up from her room and walked around the dim-lit castle. She looked left and right occasionally to see the different decorations on the wall.

There was one painting on the wall that she was interested in. It was the painting of Eliwood's mother and father, and Eliwood was in the middle; he only looked about seven at the time. She hasn't seen many paintings of noble families, but she knew that in most of them that she saw, they all had straight expressions. In this painting, all of them looked happy. Eliwood was the most cheerful of them; it seemed natural since he was still a child. She couldn't take her eyes off of that painting; she thought that it was very unusual… in a good way.

"This was the first painting that we had done when my father was not busy," Eliwood interrupted.

Caden almost jumped; surprised that she didn't notice him coming.

"L-Lord Eliwood…?"

"He was usually busy with paperwork and listening to the people's needs. He didn't have any time for himself, so it was a miracle that we had gotten this painting completed."

"He seemed like a nice man, your father."

"He was. He was very friendly and very understanding. He was well known throughout Pherae. Someday, when I become marquess, I hope I could be like my father."

"I know that you will, Lord Eliwood. I know that you have the potential to become a great marquess. You may even surpass your father's accomplishments."

"That means a lot coming from you, Caden. Thank you," he complimented as he was smiling.

"You're very welcome," she replied as she was smiling back.

"Caden, I was wondering, what nation did you come from?"

"It's been so long since I've been back, I… my family lives in Etruia."

"Etruia? The country with all the magic users?"

"Yes, my father is a sage and my mother is a cleric."

"I see, so did you inherit magical abilities from them?"

"Sadly, I've tried to walk their path, I have the potential to become a magic user, but I'm not good at using magic, although they did say to me that I had an amazing rate for acquiring knowledge. That's how I first became a tactician."

"Hm, it seems that you need to thank your parents in becoming one of the best known tacticians out there."

"You're giving me too much credit, Lord Eliwood. By the way, why such a random question, I-I'm sorry if I sound too forward."

"Well, we've been traveling all this time together, but I feel like I hardly know you."

"It seems reasonable for you to ask about me then. You've always been so friendly."

"Yes, I guess I have."

Eliwood yawned; he looked tired.

"There is a long day ahead of us. Why don't you get some sleep?" the tactician asked.

"You're right. The reason I came out here in the first place was because I couldn't get any sleep, but now I'm heading back to my room. It was a pleasure talking to you, Caden."

"Likewise, Lord Eliwood. I'm glad to have this conversation with you."

"I hope to have more conversations like this in the near future."

"I will be looking forward for them," she said bowing.

Eliwood walked away to his bedroom and Caden continued her stroll around the castle, looking at the paintings and statues. Once she got down to the hallway, she bumped into the blue haired lord. He didn't have his armor on. He looked at Caden, not noticing that she was there until he looked down towards her.

"Oh… hello Caden," Hector greeted.

"Hello, Lord Hector. _He's not as… big as I imagined. Looks like his armor makes him bigger than he actually is._"

"Um… look. I wanted to apologize. When I first met you, I doubted your abilities. I didn't think that you were a good tactician. But you proved me wrong. I'm sorry."

Caden had a look on her face where she was smiling, but looked a little unsure. "_Lord Hector… is apologizing? It's unusual, but not weird._"

"What's with that face? You didn't think I could apologize?"

"N-no, Lord Hector, that's not it! I… I just think it's… rare from hearing an apology from you."

"Rare! Geez, why does everyone think that I'm strange!"

He walked away ending their conversation; he sounded frustrated as he was walking.

"I accept your apology, Lord Hector!" she raised her voice for Hector to hopefully hear, "and I'm not joking either."

Wow, two out of the three lords talked to her this night, what's next? Is Lyn coming to start a conversation with her too? Not to her surprise, Lyn was out of her bed as well.

"Hello, Lady Lyn," Caden chuckled.

"Hello, Caden. May I ask what's funny?"

"When I first was walking around, I bumped into Lord Eliwood, then I saw Lord Hector, and now I'm meeting you at this hour."

"Yes, I guess that is funny."

"Do all the lords have something on their mind that they have been meaning to tell or ask me?" she asked indirectly.

"I suppose I do now. It was about one year ago since we met at Caelin. How did you end up being Eliwood's tactician?"

"Oh, that? That was a coincidence. At first I was staying in a village near the Pheraen castle. Sir Lowen passed by and asked for recruits. After that, I volunteered myself, and… here I am."

"I see. So, where were you before that?"

"Traveling around, trying to further my knowledge and skills to vaguely put it."

"I see."

"Enough about me, Lady Lyn. How is the castle life treating you?

"It's very different from living on the plains. Sometimes I wish I can go back to that life."

"I can see what you mean. Don't worry, I know that you'll get used to being noble eventually."

Caden yawned and rubbed her eyes.

"Well, I see you need some sleep. I probably should get back to my room as well."

"You're right. I will see you in the morning, Lady Lyn."

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Caden passed her time in the castle garden after she felt like she observed the decorations enough. She observed the trees and the flowers and the small lake they had as well. She sat on the stump of a tree enjoying the shade she received the leaves above her. There was a slight wind caressing her face. Before she knew it, she found herself taking a nap.

A guard woke her up about a couple of hours later.

"Miss Caden, I apologize for disturbing you, but Lady Eleanora and Lord Eliwood would like to have a word with you."

"Very well," she said rubbing her eyes, standing up and stretching, "Please escort me."

She followed the guard to the entrance to the throne room. The guard waited at the door and waited for the other guard's cue. When the time came, the guard opened the door, and Caden walked in. There, she saw that the throne room was a big space. On the other side of the room sat the queen and Eliwood. She made a mental chuckle seeing Eliwood sitting on the throne. She knew that he was of royalty, but it was hard for her to imagine him sitting on the throne. She walked down the room until she was several meters away from them.

"Um… Good Afternoon," she said going down on one knee, "You… You wanted to see me?"

"Caden, the tactician that helped my son. As I said before, I am grateful that you kept Eliwood alive. He's the only one I have now."

"It was a great honor to me, just to be in his presence."

"As a token of our gratitude, we would like you to cooperate with us. My son will explain it to you."

"As you know, there is still no marquess for Pherae and Ostia. It is a tradition to wait one year until we appoint a new marquess. That would mean that we would have my inauguration, and I while later, it would be Hector's. Caden, I have a favor to ask of you."

"Yes, Lord Eliwood?"

"I know that you can by busy traveling around the country, but… can you please stay in Lycia until Hector and I become marquess?"

"That… that is a lot to ask. But that _is_ a request from a soon-to-be marquess. More importantly, how can I turn down a request from a friend? Of course I'll stay in Lycia for a year," she said smiling.

Eliwood nodded and smiled, "Thank you, Caden. We can let you have a temporary room in the castle, my mother has agreed on this. From now on, you're a friend of the family, and you can come and go into the castle at any time you please. I know that you might want to visit Caelin and Ostia in a while, and I can inform them of your arrival whenever you want to go."

"This is a lot of new grants that I am receiving. Are you sure that it is not too much?"

"You've done so much for us, now it is time to repay you for everything," Eliwood answered.

For the past few days, Caden was enjoying her new freedoms. One day she felt like going to the armory near Rebecca's village. She bought a sword there, and later on visited Rebecca's village. She asked how everyone was doing. Not to Caden's surprise, Wil and Rebecca were in love, but they didn't want to show it. They tried to act like brother and sister, but Caden could see through their masks. They were both very ignorant to admit it.

"'_I won't leave you again... I'll always stay near...and protect you.' Ha, as a friend, or a lover, Wil? You're very sociable and friendly, why don't you just spit it out already telling her that you love her?_" Caden thought, _"And Rebecca, you've missed Wil and your brother for so long, why don't you show more emotion towards him? You're just acting like you've seen him everyday! Hm… probably… I can probably… help their relationship get even further…_" Caden thought.

But what does she know? Caden's been only in love once, and that didn't go as she planned. She contemplated on helping them, or not helping them. Oh well, she had a lot of time to decide. After all, she's staying in Lycia for a whole year.

Caden was wondering which lord she would like to visit next. Would she like to go to Caelin, where Lyn and the others were, who she has known longer than any other people in Lycia; or should she go to Ostia, where Matthew was staying? It was hard to make her decision, but she knew that either way she chose, she would see both of them no matter what.

Caden thought of Matthew as a friend, but after that night on Valor, she sort of thought of him being a little more than a friend. She… kind of… liked him. She wanted to spend more time with him, but she didn't want the others to know about it… right now. During the journey, she said that if a tactician having romantic relationships with others in the army, he or she will become biased and only pick the ones who he or she willing to sacrifice; the tactician would feel like he or she would worry about one person over another, and Caden didn't want to feel that way. She knew that that journey was over, but she still felt like keeping it to herself… she's used to keeping her feelings to herself. In the end of her thinking, she decided not to make her feelings so conspicuous. _"I have a lot of time to see Matthew. There's no rush to spend time with him again. After all, he only thinks of me as a friend… hopefully. Once a friend, always a friend… ha, yeah right."_

She stayed in Pherae for a few more days, and then she decided to go to Caelin. She asked Lord Eliwood and he granted her request.

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**Somewhere in Elibe one week ago:**

The young man woke up rather suddenly. He sat up on his bed, and rubbed his eyes and stretched. He lived in a small house, with only three rooms. The young man looked out the window that was right next to him. He saw a young woman picking herbs just under the window sill from the other side of the window. The young woman stood up, and looked at the person looking out the window. She waved her hand and walked through the door carrying her small basket of herbs on her arm.

"Good morning, Dugan. How did you sleep?" asked the young woman as she walked to a table and started separating the herbs she just picked.

"Fine, sis. I had this weird dream… it was like… I was with Father, on one of his adventures. It was really nice; I actually got to fight with him."

His sister slightly paused for a moment when he said "father" but she still went on with separating the herbs.

"Well… Dugan, that is… a very unusual dream."

"Why is that, Robbin?"

She sighed, "Because, last night… I had a feeling… no, it wasn't a feeling. It's a fact, but… I know… Father is dead."

She looked sad, but not that sad that she was about to cry. Dugan jumped from his bed.

"What! How did you hear about it?"

"I heard his voice. I know that we don't know where he is right now, but I know that he's dead. He's been killed by someone. I heard his voice in my dream; it said something strange, 'avenge my death.'"

"Did he tell you a name?"

"I think he probably did, but I couldn't make it out. It was too faint to recognize."

The young man did not look sad at all; in fact, he looked mad. He was wondering how his father would die so suddenly, and as he was thinking, how he died so easily. _"'Avenge my death'… don't worry, Father. No matter who it is, I'll kill the one who killed you."_ Dugan looked at his hand, the one that he uses as a way to conjure magic. He formed it into a fist and started shaking it.

"I will get to the bottom of this. Robbin, we will respect father's wishes."

"Yes, Dugan… I know we will."

----------

End of Chapter 2: Pherae

Going to Caelin? What will happen? And who are these two people?


	3. Caelin

Sorry about the late update... well, I'm trying to post it up on Mondays now, and I'll try and do that for now on. I've been playing Kingdom Hearts II since it came out, and I've been doing other things... and being lazy and a procrastinator, haha. N E ways, I can see that I have quite a few hits... more than I expected too, so I thank you for that! Well, here you go, the third chapter of A Trickle of Time.

**----------**

**Chapter 3: Caelin**

After a couple of days later, Caden, escorted by Harken and Isadora, arrived at the borderline to Caelin. In another moment, they reached the castle. When they got to the foot of the hill where the castle was standing upon, Caden turned around and looked at the couple.

"Thank you, Sir Harken, Miss Isadora. I can make my way from here now. I don't want you to spend a lot of time on me; you're still preparing for your wedding, are you not?"

"Yes, we are still preparing. Unfortunately, we need to make sure that you have made it safely to the Caelin castle by Lord Eliwood's orders," Harken pointed out.

"I'm fine taking it from here, really. You can go back to Pherae. This is an order from me."

"Very well, if you will excuse us, we will see you some other time then," Isadora said.

Caden saw the two off, and she made her way up the hill to the castle.

"State your name and your purpose," ordered the guard.

"I am Caden, a tactician. I have come here on Lady Lyndis's behalf. I already told her that I was coming."

"Ah, we've been expecting you. Please, go right in."

The guards let her pass through, and she walked down the halls until she reached the wooden double doors separating the outside of the castle, to the inside. She took a deep breath; she hasn't been to the Caelin castle in a long time. As she was opening the door, she was anticipating what, and probably who, she's going to see on the other side. She silently opened the door, trying not to make too much noise. The first person she saw on the other side was Florina; she looked like she was just idly walking by. Florina saw someone at the corner of her eye, and to her surprise, it was Caden.

"Oh! Caden… h-hello. It's… it's nice to see you again. I didn't know… that you were going to arrive this early."

"Yup, I just arrived. It's nice to see you again as well, Florina. How as everything been going in the castle after that raid that one day? Has everything been alright?"

"Y-Yes… everything has been going smoothly. Um… I think you should probably ask, Lyn… I mean Lady Lyn about those things though… I don't know that much."

Caden chuckled, seeing that Florina is always her timid self, no matter how long they've known each other, "Alright, I'll do that. Do you know where she is right now?"

"I may be of assistance, Caden," said another voice.

Caden would never forget that voice anywhere. It was always the same, very optimistic and flattering. She turned around and smiled at the chestnut-colored haired cavalier.

"Hello, Sain. It's nice to see you again."

Caden saw that Florina was keeping her distance from Sain, she looked as if she wanted to run away just about now. Florina would always stay the same about her fear of men, the tactician knew that.

"Ah, Caden, it is wonderful to see you standing in my presence once again. Now, you said that you wanted to meet Lady Lyndis, did you not? She's usually walking around the castle gardens at this time of day. Shall I escort you to her?"

"Escort me you shall, Sain," she said with a smile. _"Sain… you're very flirtatious, but you kind of have to stop it. I… don't like you that way, and… let's just say that you don't want that friendship we have right now to come undone."_(1)

Lyn was walking down the stone path to the fountain surrounded by bushes. She looked at the water flowing down, dish by dish. Lyn sat down at the rim of the fountain. She looked up at the sky and lied down on the edge. Lyn placed her arm on her forehead and her other arm across her stomach. Lyn persuaded herself that everything was boring for the time being. She wanted to go to the plains. As she closed her eyes, she was imagining that she was standing on the beautiful plains of Sacae, in her little house that she's had for six months.

"Hm… that doesn't look very lady-like, Lady Lyndis," Caden teased.

Lyn immediately sat up and looked at the person with the familiar voice. She saw Caden; Sain was standing a distance away.

"Caden! Nice to see you again."

"Likewise, Lady Lyn. I was over in Pherae for a while, and then I decided to visit Caelin for a couple of days, you know, if that's alright with you," she said as she sat down next to Lyn. (Sain left as the two were still talking)

"Of course it's alright. You're always welcome here."

"Thank you. I will enjoy my stay here. So, how is your grandfather doing?"

"He's doing great. My grandfather has fully recovered since the last time I saw him."

"That's very good news to my ears."

"Yes, it is."

"I was thinking to myself that we didn't make it to Caelin in time."

"Don't think that way. He's all better now."

"Yes, I suppose so."

There was a slight pause.

"From the way that you were looking when I first walked up to you, you were deep in thought, were you not? I assume that you were thinking of Sacae again…?"

"You're very observant, Caden. It's no wonder how you kept everyone from dying."

"If you miss the plains so much, why don't you go and visit it once in a while?"

"I would love to do that, but since I'm a princess, I can't just go anywhere I want to. I'm bounded by these castle walls, and by the borderline of Caelin. The only time that I can get out is when there's a meeting or a gathering of marquesses in another part of Lycia. Plus, if I do go to Sacae, where would I go? There is no village for me to return to."

"I see… so I guess it's been real hard for you, since your grandfather is teaching you all the rules of being marquess now, is it not?"

"You're right again. Truthfully, I don't want to be marquess, I just want to go back to Sacae," Lyn acknowledged as she was standing up, "I was going to spar now, would you like to come with me?"

"At first you were lying down, why don't you relax before you do that?"

"I haven't trained in a while. It's hard for me to take a break. I don't know what to do if I don't train."

"Alright, then, I'll come with you. Um… Can I spar with you?"

"You know how to use a weapon?"

"Yes, I've been learning how to use a sword. I know I might not be a good sparring partner, but I would still like to have a friendly duel with you."

"That sounds fair. I accept your challenge."

They walked to the training room where Kent was instructing some new recruits. Lyn and Caden walked in during the recruits' training session, asking Kent if they could use part of the area. He accepted, and Lyn and Caden stood at opposite ends.

They bowed to each other and started their duel. Caden was the first one to attack; she ran towards Lyn and leaned forward when she got closer, and swung her sword sideways. Lyn blocked with her mani katti and stepped to the right. Caden hopped back and lunged towards Lyn, Lyn evaded her attack and Caden, since she used a lot of force in her lunge, started to fall forward. She twisted to the left using her momentum and swung her other foot behind to support her stance, and she held the sword in front of her pointing the tip of the blade to Lyn. Lyn used her opportunity to attack, and she swung her sword diagonally to Caden. Caden held her sword above her head as Lyn heavily swung down. The force was great, and Caden's legs gave out and she fell on the ground. She sat up, and Lyn had the mani katti's blade near Caden's neck.

"I win," Lyn announced.

Lyn moved the blade from Caden and offered her a hand for Caden to take. Caden smiled and took that hand. Little did they know, the trainees were observing their duel, along with Kent and Sain. The small group applauded at their performance. Both Lyn and Caden sheathed their sword.

"Caden, I had no idea that you knew how to use a sword," Kent said.

"I've been training off and on. I first learned how to use a sword about five years ago; I haven't been training every day… every month to be exact. I still lost very easily, though. I went against you, Lady Lyn, who has been fighting practically all your life. I've only started, and I'm still not good."

"Wow, you're so great with a sword, I wish to fight you now!" commanded a recruit. He ran past the group and toward Caden. Sain and Kent were too slow to grab him to stop. Lyn, on the other hand, even though she was right next to Caden, moved away from the two who were about to start the fight.

"N-No, wait! Ack! L-Lady Lyn! Whe- ah!" Caden yelped stepping back.

The trainee raised his sword ready to swing. He swung his sword down towards the tactician, and she barely saved herself. She blocked the attack with her sword that was half way still in the sheath.

"Y-You had the intent on killing me! Are you mad!" Caden exclaimed.

"No, just excited," he explained.

He jumped back and Caden pulled out her sword all the way out. She knew that she couldn't persuade him from backing down now.

"Bayle! I order you to stop this!" Kent commanded.

"Bayle!" Caden thought.

She froze at the name and the recruit swung his sword horizontally, luckily Caden gripped her sword in front of her. He hit the sword and Caden stumbled back due to the force. Bayle repeated his move many times; Caden blocking each one as she zoned out.

"What's the matter, you can't fight back?" he intimidated.

_"Snap out of it!" _she yelled mentally. Caden had to admit that he was fast, probably faster than her. But she was smart enough to predict his moves. All that she needed to do now is to find her opening when to attack. Caden dodged Bayle's next attack, and she lunged forward and hit his armor. He stumbled back and Caden slashed horizontally. She used the flat edge of the sword and pushed him back even more. He lost his balance and fell down. Bayle was on the receiving end instead of Caden this time; she imitated what Lyn did to her, she pointed the sword to Bayle's neck. (2)

"Checkmate," she joked.

Some of the other recruits applauded. Caden offered her hand to help Bayle up; he ignored it with a look of disgust on his face and helped himself up. Without looking at her, he took his sword and walked out.

"That was a nice form, Bayle, even though you lost," said one of the higher ranking recruits.

Caden sheathed her sword once again.

"Bayle is one of the top trainees. He has great technique, he just lacks the obedience and the timing," Kent said.

"Hm, I can see that," Caden said as she looked at her hand, the one that Bayle refused to take, "_He must still be young. I can get why he didn't take my hand, he has his 'manly' pride. He didn't want to take it because he lost to me, me being a female especially._"

"Miss Caden, you are not only beautiful, but you're also a graceful swordswoman. I am truly amazed that I have gotten to witness your skill."

"How flattering, Sain. I am not that good wielding a sword, though. It was just luck that I ended up victorious this time. _Sain… if he continues with his flattery and all, I might want to hit him or something to shut him up. He's good looking and all that, he's actually a very good talker too, but he should know that he's not my type… and… I don't want to hurt him and all either, but I WILL do that if he keeps this up._"

"By the way, while you were fighting, you looked like you had something else on your mind. Were you preoccupied?" Kent asked.

The name Bayle rang in her head again. It showed in her face that she reliving a painful memory. She shook that thought away and answered his question.

"Y-Yes, I had a friend named Bayle who was traveling with me before Lady Lyn found me." She sounded as she was having difficulty saying "friend" and "Bayle" in the same sentence.

"Really? How come he wasn't with you when I found you?" Lyn contributed.

"He… He died, before I met you."

"Oh… I'm sorry," she sympathized.

"I've… somewhat gotten over it now… I mean, it's already been five years."

"Was he someone special to you?"

"He was… just a friend," she lied, "I'm… tired. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to relax. Lady Lyn, can I take one of the rooms?"

"Sure, let me give you one."

The tactician followed Lyn to one of the rooms. When Caden walked inside, she slumped on the bed.

"_Wow, I'm not used to this strenuous activity. I've been training a lot, but real battle is different. Everything is different from simulations…"_

She went on with her thinking. It was weird for her. When she came here, she was thinking that she was going to enjoy her time here. Now, she was thinking about Bayle. Not the Bayle that she met, _her_ Bayle. She looked at the mirror that was hanging near the foot of the bed. She imagined Bayle standing near it.

"_Don't worry, Caden… I'll protect you…" _he said in Caden's mind.

She scoffed, and carelessly threw a pillow at the mirror. The pillow hit the mirror, and her image of Bayle disappeared, leaving a shaking mirror behind.

"Protect me…? Yeah right," she fumed as she closed her eyes. She didn't feel like taking a nap right now, she just needed some excuse so she could be alone for a while. Without anything else on her mind, she thought that taking a nap, she might sort of forget about him. She closed her eyes, trying to force herself to take a nap.

----------

"Lady Lyndis, did you know anything about Caden when you met her?" Sain asked.

"Now that I think about it, no, we really didn't talk about our pasts that much. Caden did sometimes mention that her family lives in Etruia, but I guess that has nothing to do with why she looked so glum just now."

"You think something big happened to her in her past?"

"Probably… there's no other reason why she stops when she hears the name 'Bayle.'"

"Bayle was probably her significant other, something might have happened between the two that must have impacted her that much."

"An interesting statement, Sain. Maybe you should be the one to confirm that for us by asking her yourself."

"Alright then, I will…" he said taking a step closer to the door, he stopped and turned the other way, "…tomorrow. _I get a feeling that she doesn't like me much, but it's just a feeling…"_

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End of Chapter 3: Caelin

Who is this Bayle Caden keeps on talking about? Find out in the next chapter.

If it's not much, I would like at least three more revews. Sorry for the request. I want to see if this story is interesting so that I can continue.

**Author's note:**

I like the way that Sain talks in the game, it sounds very poetic. Unfortunately, I'm not very poetic, so I couldn't really get his real Sain-ness in my fic, haha.

1) If you don't get how that saying is structured, I got that from my cousins and from various cartoons (yes, I'm still a kid inside). So, usually one would say, "Shall we?" and the other one would answer "Let's shall." So…yeah, that's how it goes.

2) Sorry that I can't make up good fighting scenes. I don't take any fighting classes, so I really don't know how to describe them.


	4. Bayle

**FYI:** Well, I wasn't going to put this chapter in originally because it doesn't focus on the Fire Emblem characters that much. If you've read my other fics, I've usually spent some chapters talking about my OC's past (well, in this one, tactician isn't really an OC, but since they don't show the tactician much, I treat him/her as an OC). Besides, it's pretty interesting in what kind of history you can create for the tactician.

Ya know, I think that my stories aren't really fanfiction, they usually focus on the OC in the world.

N E ways, I thank you for reading on, reading about my tactician.

My tactician's love life, her past, and why she became a tactician in the first place will be thrown in the future chapters now.

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**Chapter 4: Bayle**

Caden woke up the next day, rejuvenated, and she walked out of the room. Ironically, when she opened the door, she saw the young trainee, Bayle. "_Oh, I start my day with THIS person._" Caden doesn't really want any enemies, nor does she like it when somebody's mad at her, so she tried to say sorry to Bayle. But why would _she _be the one to say sorry? _He_ was the one who stormed out when he lost. When she looked at Bayle, he still had that glint of disgust on his face when he looked at her.

"Um… Good… Good morning, Bayle. Um… about yesterday-"

"Don't remind me. In fact, don't even mention it at all!" he snapped.

"But… I'm-"

"Keep it to yourself. I don't want to hear it."

"I'm so-"

"Just… shut up."

They stared at each other for a while. He ended their conversation by walking away. Obviously, he was still mad about his defeat. Caden tried to forget what happened just now, and she walked around the castle; she passed by some familiar people, like the trainees from yesterday. She walked to the training room and saw Bayle, attacking a straw dummy. Each hit that connected with the dummy, made the dummy swing back. She even saw that every time he swung his sword at it, a chunk of the straw would fly out. "_Anger management…_" Caden thought to herself, "_This must be HIS form of anger management. No wonder he's not good with his temper… or good on his obedience._"

"Caden! I was just looking for you!" Sain said from behind.

Caden quickly turned around and she almost lost her balance. Sain caught her before she fell.

"Have you fallen for me, already?" Sain joked. (1)

"Sain… both you and I know that that is one of the worst lines that you used on a woman."

He laughed, "Yes, I know… but alas, there are no lines that I have that can express your beauty, and your talent, Miss Caden."

Sain let her go when Caden regained her balance.

"There's no need to call me 'miss,' Sain. We're friends, and I'm not a higher rank than you either. And… that's very flattering."

"Of course, I shall listen to your words, just like how I would listen to your commands on the battlefield. By the way, why is it that you knew how to use a sword, but you weren't on the front lines when we were at war?"

"It's a simple answer, really. It would be difficult for me to give out commands and fight at the same time. It would put me at a disadvantage, it being that I have to look out for the enemy in front of me; I would get distracted if I had to give other people orders while I am fighting. I wouldn't be working and thinking to the best of my abilities."

"Yes, I see why now. Who taught you how to use a sword?"

"I… um… I taught myself. I was observing everyone else's techniques as everyone was fighting. When the battle was over and we had time to relax, I would secretly try to imitate their footwork, and put it all together to make my own technique."

"You must have been doing that often to make your own."

"Yes… five years of ascertaining different swords skills. I have some techniques from Lord Eliwood, Guy, Lady Lyn, you, Kent, and all the other swordfighters in the army."

"Being a tactician has its advantages then, am I right?"

"Of course… one of those advantages is why I became a tactician in the first place."

"I see… so who's was the first technique that you imitated?"

"Hm… funny you should bring that up… I first learned how to use a sword because of… Bayle."

Still Caden was choking on the word when she said "Bayle" and Sain was there to find out why.

"So… why is Bayle such a different name from other names?"

"Because… it is… it's such a cruel name!" she retorted, "I can't believe a per-…name so beautiful can… can…" (2)

"Can what?"

She cleared her throat, "Ahem… never mind that… I almost lost myself, sorry. Sorry Sain, I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to pry into my life… I just don't feel like talking about… him… right now."

"How can you tell that I was?"

"I'm a strategist. I'm supposed to figure out what's going on and everything. It was a nice try, but not good enough. Please excuse me, Sain."

She walked away from Sain; Sain didn't try to follow her either. Was coming to Caelin a mistake? All she's ever thinking about now was that person, in good ways and bad ways. To try to get her mind off of him, she walked through the castle garden, looking at the healthy flowers and the bright green leaves and bushes. She thought that nature got her mind off of things. She's been traveling for so long, that staying inside a building was boring for her. She felt like training, but training made her think a lot. She spotted a stone bench as she was walking. She thought that looking at the nature of the bushes moving in the slight wind could probably calm her down a little. She took her seat, and looked at the bushes. After a while, she closed her eyes.

----------

_Caden was on her way to Sacae. She only started her trip about a week ago, so she was still in Etruia. She was walking past the edge of the forest, and she saw a person who looked like a sword-for-hire He looked pretty bad as well, he was covered in dirt, cuts and bruises everywhere, and he was just… sitting, on a tree stump. He confirmed her suspicion when he looked up at her. It looked like he had a hard time even lifting up his head. Judging by his face, this sword-for-hire looked very young; about a little older than Caden, perhaps. He wasn't sleeping, he was so badly beat and tired that he couldn't move. _

_"Do you need any help?" Caden asked._

_"Yes… please…" he answered weakly. He even looked like it was hard for him to speak._

_Caden had an elixir with her for emergency purposes. She didn't need to use it on herself, so she offered it to him since he needed it more than her. Of course, she didn't know if he had any medical supplies on him, but if he did, he would have used it on him already, right?_

_"Can you hold the elixir?"_

_He tried lifting up his hand, but his strength gave out and his hand fell to the ground._

_"You must have been out here for a while, haven't you?" Caden rhetorically questioned._

_He looked too weak to hold the elixir, lift his own head, and drinking it himself so… Caden had no choice. She decided to help him drink it by… yes, passing it through her mouth._

_--Caden's POV—_

_I've never kissed a person before. I have family, but we would kiss each other on the cheek when it came to me. They knew I was… conservative. I wanted to wait for that first kiss, but… dammit, why do I want to help this guy! He's taking my first kiss! I got it; I won't believe it as my first kiss, that's all. I poured some of the elixir's content into my mouth. I looked at him and kneeled down. Then, I reluctantly pressed my lips against his to transfer the elixir to him. Right after the contents left my mouth, I immediately pulled away. I was red in the face after, and even before, I had to do that. _

_He looked like he was regaining his strength. Thank Elimine; I did NOT want to do that again! He opened his eyes easier this time and he tried lifting himself up from the tree stump. He looked like he was struggling and hi strength was coming little by little, so I helped him up._

_"Th-Thank you… um…"_

_"My name is Caden. You're welcome..."_

_"My name is Bayle."_

_"Hm… Bayle, that name suits you well."_

_"Haha, I can tell you not only like the name, but the person who has the name," he joked._

_I blushed again by the comment he just made. "I-I-I-I-Uh… No! That's not it! I-I wanted to… help you, that's all! Uhm… that was… my… first kiss… I don't uhm… at first… I didn't want to… do that."_

_He smiled and looked at me, "Haha, you're cute when you're nervous. Don't worry; it was my first kiss as well."_

----------

"Ah! Get out of my head already!" Caden mentally yelled. Right now, she felt like ripping her skull open and giving herself a lobotomy so she could forget. She clenched her fists and she looked pretty mad too. Looks like looking at nature didn't help her one bit.

"Is… Is everything alright, Caden?" Florina asked as she was walking towards her. Caden quickly turned her head to look at her, she still looked mad. The tactician looked down and let out a big sigh.

"Everything is alright, Florina. Sorry about that, I'm not mad at you, I was just thinking about something… something that I should seriously forget."

Caden tried to calm down; so she stood up and started to walk away, passing Florina.

"Um… wait… Caden!"

She stopped and looked back at Florina, "Yes?"

"I was um… wondering… what were you thinking about? I… I want to talk to you… you know… as… as friends…"

Caden sighed. Usually she was the one to ask to talk to her.

"_I guess she's trying to be less shy. _Of course, I'll talk to you," she said as she was trying to form a smile.

Caden sat back down on the bench, and Florina occupied the other space of the bench. The tactician looked down again and let out another sigh. She really tried to calm down… a lot.

"What's… what's made you so angry all of a sudden?" Florina asked.

"I was thinking… about Bayle… not this trainee Bayle here… the one… that I knew five years ago."

"Was he someone important to you?"

"Sain just somehow asked me that question a while ago too," Caden chuckled, "I guess that you guys won't leave me alone unless I tell you then, haha."

"Sain asked you too? I… I didn't know that. I just wanted to learn more about you."

"You timid, lady," Caden laughed, "I wonder that if I'll tell you, you'll tell Lady Lyn. No worries, I don't care if you tell her. I think it's better if I tell you than Sain.

"Well, Bayle is… was a swordsman. I met him in a rather funny way…"

Caden told her story to Florina, and she ended when Bayle regained his strength.

"Well, another day, another story. I'll stop right here."

"That does sound like a funny way to meet someone."

"Yes, after he got over joking, it was a real wonder how coincidental we have gotten to meet. I told him that I was going to Sacae, and he said that he was going in that same direction, too. And, so… that's how we became friends."

"I see," Florina replied

"Ah, there you are, Florina," interrupted a guard walking through the garden, "Lady Lyndis wishes to speak with you."

"Al…Alright…"

Caden noticed that the only guards that talked to Florina were female. She mentally chuckled seeing that it might take a real long time for her to get over her arrhenphobia. (3)

"Um… it was nice talking to you again, Caden."

Caden smiled, "No problem. You can talk to me anytime you like."

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End of Chapter 4: Bayle.

Err… uhm… no questions of suspense this time, haha. Please read the next chapter.

**Author's notes:**

Sigh... sadly to say, I don't know a lot about relationships. I've never had a boyfriend, therefore, I've never been kissed, haha. So, by experience, I don't know how relationships come and go. I can only go by what I hear and what I read.

1)sarcastic laugh I don't know why I had to put that lame pun, but Sain is full of his own energetic flattery, and I don't know how to show it, since I'm not a good poet.

2) Well, I looked online at this website showing the name's meanings, and it said that Bayle means "beautiful." I kinda had to mention that some way.

3) I looked online and it said that arrhenophobia means the fear of men. I hope it means that… or someone just made it up… oh well.

Three reviews please before next Monday!


	5. Live a Little

Thank you for the reviews again! I really appreciate it when someone critiques on my work, good or bad, because it shows me what I need to improve on, and what I can do well.

I have posted up a drawing that I have done of Caen. If you want to see it, it's in my user page.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any **Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken** characters. They belong to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems.

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**Chapter 5: "Live a Little"**

As Florina left, Caden tried to get her mind off of Bayle. She tried to have a good time, so she walked out of the castle and walked to the nearby town. She felt like buying something, but she didn't have a lot of money with her.

Caden walked to a vendor, and looked at the different kinds of potions they had. As she was there, she saw a boy, he had ragged clothes, and he looked like he didn't have any food in a while either. The tactician observed the kid for a while, and, as she expected, he stole an item off the shelf and tried to sneak away with it. The store clerk saw the boy, and yelled for him to come back. He told some other employee to go after the kid, and he went. Caden followed behind the employee to see what he was going to do after he catches him.

The kid ran through alleyways and down busy streets, eventually, the kid tripped and dropped what he stole. The employee was out of breath, but he caught up to him.

"Hey boy, give that back, you need to pay for it."

The kid stayed in the position he fell and looked at the young man.

"Come here, kid."

The kid looked scared, and the employee held out a hand.

"H-Hold on… I'll pay for the thing he stole," Caden interrupted.

The young man looked at Caden, "You want to pay for him? Alright, that's three thousand gold."

Caden took out her money satchel and took out the amount he needed. She gave it to the young man and he left. Caden walked up to the kid, picked up the thing he stole, and saw that it was an elixir. She picked that up, and then looked at the boy.

"Don't worry, I'm not stealing this from you… here," she said holding out the elixir for him to get.

The kid stood up, and took it out of her hands.

"Thank you," he mouthed.

Caden nodded her head and told the kid to go.

"Don't worry; they're not going to chase after you any more. It's already paid for. So go ahead, go on," Caden said gesturing for him to go. He listened to her and took a couple steps, but then he turned back and looked at Caden again. He was searching for something in his ragged pocket, then he had it clasped in his hand, and Caden reached out to get it. He dropped it in her hand, and saw that it was a leather necklace with a tiny ruby looking orb hanging from the string.

"This is… real beautiful. I can't take this from you."

The kid looked disappointed that Caden didn't want to take it, so she changed her mind and accepted the generous gift.

Caden smiled and knelt down, "Alright then, I'll keep it. And here's something from me."

She was searching through her satchel and gave him some gold, and a small thong bracelet with various small stones strung around the leather. She placed it in his palm and closed his hand.

"Go ahead, it's yours. You can do whatever you want with it."

The boy understood and ran off.

"You're always doing a good deed, I see," said someone from the busy street.

The tactician looked around and saw the cavalier in crimson. She turned in his direction and walked up to him.

"I can't help it. When I see that someone needs help, especially if it's a kid, I just have to do something"

"Well that's a good thing. There is always something happening in the world, and a small deed may eventually turn out to become a great one."

"Yeah, I already know that that's true. It has happened once or twice in my life. Would you… like to walk with me, Kent?"

"Sure, I would be glad to."

"You know, every time I see you, you're always working, or doing some kind of duty. I wouldn't expect you to be walking around like this."

Kent chuckled. "Well, Lady Lyndis forced me to have a day off today. She said that I should enjoy life a little more, something that Sain said to me once before."

"Well, that's a little true. There is more to life than just work, Kent. You're all work and no play," she teased.

"Even you're saying that to me? I would have expected you to be the same as me."

"Aww, well that's too bad, haha. Kent, we need to do something, something that will let you lighten up a little. If we can't do that, then all hope is lost."

"… How very reassuring."

"Yup!" she said as she jumped in front of Kent's path, "I'm going to help you some way, some how. Although I think Sain should help you with that since he's male. But I doubt that you would listen to him about 'living life' advice."

"You're… you're right about me not listening to Sain, but are you sure you want to do this?"

"Of course, you're too young to act old, silly! Live a little," she said enunciating the last sentence.

"And how to you suppose I should do that?"

"Do whatever you think is fun."

"I… don't know what-"

"Fine, fine… if you don't know what to do, let's do something that I would like to do. I know you can help me with this one."

"Uh… sure… what is it?"

"Teach me how to ride a horse."

"You don't know how?"

"Of course I don't. I've been traveling by foot for the last several years. I've always wanted to learn how to ride a horse, but then I thought that if I asked a person when we were on that journey, I would delay them from going on with their duties. Even you might think that teaching is fun then, right?"

"Well… yes, I do think teaching recruits is what you call fun."

"Haha, that's nice. _How sad… _Well, Kent, please teach me how to ride a horse. _He's a real good guy at heart, he's just… how can I say this…? He's just, kind of boring at times._"

They went back to the castle, and Caden picked from one of the free horses in the stable. Kent helped her with the basics of riding, and helped her get the saddle on the back of the horse. Caden didn't have a very good time at first since she was falling off and the horse kept on moving, but as the hours went by, she started getting better and better and the horse listened to her and eventually let Caden ride on its back for a while.

"Good boy," Kent complimented the horse.

Caden got off and walked to the front of the horse, "Wow, riding a horse is real tiring, 'specially on your first time." (1)

"Yes, but later on, you get used to it."

Caden tried walking back to her room; she barely made it. She lied down on the bed and smiled because of her accomplishment for today. She heard a knock on her door minutes later and told that person to come in; it was Lyn and Florina.

"Hello, Lady Lyn. Hello, Florina," Caden greeted as she was trying to sit up.

"Hello, Caden. Florina told me about… that."

"Oh," Caden replied in a lower tone. _"Damn, I almost forgot about him. It's not her fault, though. She didn't know I was trying to get that out of my head. _Well, that's over and… no offense, but… I don't want to talk about it, or tell any other story today."

"I see… well, we want to talk to you about other things… you know… I feel like I could tell you anything."

"Um… what's… your point, Lady Lyndis?"

"Who do you like, Caden?"

"_Matthew_ … Um… I don't know… I don't have somebody I like. What about you Lady Lyn? I I'm only asking because this question might go to why you started this conversation in the first place. _Hopefully you two won't find out who I like for the time being._"

"I guess it does… and I was wondering if you could help Florina with her problem too. Well… I think it's simple who I like."

Caden chuckled, "Rath, is it? Haha, I kind of figured by the way you liked talking to him and spending time with him, like that time during the celebration on Valor."

Lyn slightly blushed, "Was it that obvious?"

"Of course it was. Anyways, what about Florina?"

"Uh… uhm…" Florina stuttered.

Caden had that thought look on her face, trying to see who she liked, "Oh yes… there was that one time when we were fighting… your Pegasus dragged Lord Hector to you… could it be…? You like Lord Hector, don't you, Florina?"

Florina blushed and tried to looked away. Caden and Lyn laughed.

"That's what I want you to help Florina with."

"Hm? About Florina liking Lord Hector?"

"Yes, I know that later on, you're going to visit Ostia. I would like you to take Florina with you when you go so she could meet Lord Hector again."

"Uh… sure… I can do that. But… how'd this whole conversation come about in the first place?"

"Well, when Florina first told me how you met Bayle, she asked me later who I liked and how I first met him, and I asked her the same question."

"…Huh… interesting… Haha, even though you're noble, women are still women inside."

"What do you mean by that?" Florina asked.

"When I was with my friends in Etruia, we would do the same thing, talked about whom we liked and all. _But every time it got to me, they would always laugh at me because of the person I liked._ It looks like it's still the same with the noble people and their servants."

"Of course, I used to live on Sacae, but I didn't talk about what we just talked about much often. This is a little new to me, to express my feelings like this."

"It's good to have new experiences. That way, you can learn more," Caden smiled, and lied down on her bed again, "I hope you don't mind me doing this. I'm sore right now since Kent taught me how to ride a horse."

"Riding a horse? You didn't know how?"

"_That_ again. Yes, I didn't know how to ride a horse, but now, I kind of do. I'm sorry; the only thing I've been feeling since I came to Caelin was me being sore _and thinking of Bayle_. I don't know how I can handle it. I know I've been walking for years, but training is the worst of it all! I respect you all even more for training and fighting for a long time."

Lyn and Florina laughed.

"It gets easier as time passes, don't worry. Sooner or later, you'll get used to riding a horse. Also, if you keep on training, you might be that future swordfighter with your original technique."

"… You… Sain told you then, didn't he? I guess if I give you information about myself to one person, everyone else has to know too, right? Well, it looks that way."

"I'm sorry, but we don't know that much about you, that's all."

"And I don't really know that much about you all, either. Huh… what's there to say? I'm not used to telling people about myself, as do other people… most of the time. I like to keep my feelings to myself if you ask me. So please, don't keep on asking about me and about my personality. I think it's a waste of time. I'm not that interesting."

Lyn opened her mouth to say something, but she decided not to.

Caden closed her eyes and rolled to her side, "I already said that I would help Florina with her problem, and if that's all that you need to tell me, I would like to take a nap, if that's alright with you."

Lyn and Florina looked at each other, "_A change in attitude?_ Sure, we can leave now. Thank you, Caden."

Caden lifted her arm, waving it as a sign for "you're welcome". Lyn and Florina left and closed her door. She said that she was going to take a nap, but that was a half lie, half truth. Of course she was tired, but not tired enough to take a nap. She just did that yesterday. Instead, she was thinking.

"Now let's see… Florina likes Lord Hector, and I think Lord Hector feels the same. Um… Lord Eliwood likes Ninian, well, that's a little obvious since he asked her to stay with him. Lady Lyn likes Rath, and who knows what Rath feels… or thinks. Well, those are all the lords, who else is there? Wil and Rebecca, Sain and Fiora… well, I don't know if that last one is going to last long… hm… there's too many to name. And then there's me… Matthew… but, Matthew loves Leila, even though he didn't say it directly to us, I already know what he means. But she died; I wonder how long it would take him to get over her death? I've… got to get to Ostia as fast as I can… well, not really as fast as I can; I just want to get over there. Alright, it's settled, after a few more days, I'll go to Ostia."

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**Somewhere in Elibe… **

Dugan grabbed the robe that he had set on his bed. He tied it up around his neck and straightened it afterwards. Robbin did the same thing with her robe, but hers was shorter than her brothers'. He took the fenrir dark magic tome from the shelf, one of the only things his father left behind. He opened the book and read the contents. There was even a little note inside the book for him, _"My son Dugan, use this magic tome only for emergency use. This is a rare tome to come by, and it is real powerful. I hope that you will use it wisely."_ The same went for Robbin's present left by her father, instead of hers being dark magic, like her father and brother, she went with the path of the anima magic. Her father left her a Fimbulvetr, with almost the same note attached to it.

"Robbin, this may take a while until we reach Lycia. Are you sure you want to come? I already have myfriends going with me."

"I'm your older sister, and the one with the dream that got this whole thing started. It's only right for me to go with you. Besides, I want to take care of my little brother."

"Feh… alright, then. Although I know that I can take care of myself."

"You won't get far without my vision of this person's face. I know you need me, you just don't want to admit it."

"… Fine, let's go. Are you sure that this person lives in Lycia?"

"I… think I am. I think the first name that he gave me started with an E... H... C? There were a lot of faces that I saw, and I know that what I saw was some part of Lycia… I think. Either way, it's still a lead. I think it will jog my memory if we see someone familiar."

"Right, alright then. It's time to avenge our father, the great magic user, Nergal."

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End of Chapter 5: "Live a little"

Now you know who the sibling's father is, what will happen next? And what will happen when Florina and Caden go to Ostia? Find out in the next chapter.

**Author's note:**

1) Haha, well, I've never been on a horse, so I can't really say if you get sore or not. But I think that you do get sore around your quads since you kinda have to keep yourself up on the horse, right? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

**Read me!** Due to my lack of inspiration and new content, I'm posting up every other Monday now. I'm sorry you have to wait two weeks now for the next chapter, but please bear with me. I've been trying to come up with other things to make the story more interesting and less boring, but so far it hasn't come up yet. If you have any ideas, please e-mail me at eyedonno89 at yahoo and I will make sure to credit you. So then, I will see you guys in two weeks!

Three reviews please before next next Monday please!


	6. Travel Part I

I'm sorry that it's a day late! I was trying to upload it, but then something during the uploading process was restricting me in uploading a new document. But now, since it's here, here you go, the 6th chapter.

**----------**

**Chapter 6: Travel Part I**

_I asked Bayle where he was going. Coincidentally, he was going to Sacae too. He asked me how long I've been traveling, and I told him that it has only been several days. The reason that he wants to go to Sacae, as he told me, was that so he can learn how to wield the sword as the Sacaen's do._

_"But, why would you want to learn how to use the swords as Sacaens when you can learn a great sword technique in Lycia, which is closer to you?"_

_"Aha, that's the reason why. I've already know the Lycian technique, 'specially the one from Thria. I'm from Thria, that's why I want to travel to Sacae, so I can learn their technique, and probably mix them together and make my own combinations."_

_"I see. Well, that's interesting. … Wait, if your from Lycia, why are you here in Etruia?"_

_"Haha… that… well, I kind of got err… lost." _

_"Really?" I chuckled, and started to laugh. He looked at me as if he wanted for me to stop laughing. I tried taking a deep breath and tried not to laugh anymore, "Well, that means that you were way off. Sacae is the opposite way."_

_"Oh really? Hey, thanks. I'm not good with directions, as you can obviously see. I was going to turn back some time, but then I was thinking that it would be nice to see some of the fighting techniques that they use Etruia."_

_"Well, most of the fighters here are magic users. It won't help you that much with your sword techniques. Don't you have a map of Elibe? It would help you a lot."_

_"No, I think adventuring without a map makes it more fun than with it. Who knows? Maybe going to Etruia will help me with my sword techniques. Well, then if you say so, I guess I should make my way… in the right direction."  
"That would be a good idea, haha." I said._

_"Hey, why don't we travel together? We are going the same way, aren't we?"_

_"Well, I don't want to be the one slowing you down and being in your way. I don't know how to use a sword, either."_

_He looked at me like he was surprised, "You don't know how? You've been traveling all this time and you have no means of defense? What's wrong with you?"_

_"Well… I didn't say that I didn't have any means of defense. I have a fire tome (which I can never use due to my lack of fire conjuring, hey, I just bring it around so that people 'think' I'm a threat) so I'm alright with that, but-"_

_"No buts. Magic is only good at a distance. Fire is also a weak magic spell. When you get too close, it's too dangerous for the user. It's good to be an 'all-rounder.' Do you have your own sword?"_

_"I… no, I don't since-"_

_"Well let's get one! I need to teach you right away!"_

_It was weird… I only met him about ten minutes ago. When we found out that we had the same destination, he probably assumed that I would travel with him even though I didn't give him my reply. He was treating me as a friend, although we just met. He dragged me to the armory and bought me a sword. _

_"Here, your present from me as us starting our friendship," he said handing me the sword. _

_He's already calling us friends? I took the sword from him and thanked him. He then took me outside of the town again to train me to hold and swing the sword. For a person still recovering from fatigue, he sure is pretty energetic. It looks like the elixir works real fast, not only in regaining your health, but your whole vitality as well._

_After he taught me some techniques and footwork, I went… we went on our way to Sacae. As we both knew, it would take a long time to get there, but that would be the only flaw, right? Little did we know, we were slightly wrong…_

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Caden grabbed her small drawstring bag which she filled with necessities like elixirs, antitoxins, and other remedies.

She walked out to the front of the castle where the others were. They were there to see Florina and her go.

"I'm sorry that we can't have more people accompany you to travel to Ostia. We are limited with guards and soldiers for the time being since they are all reconstructing Caelin and helping the people," Lyn said.

"It's alright, Lady Lyn. Florina and I will do alright traveling to Ostia. We can both ride on Huey for a while, so it will be faster travel. She's a better fighter than me, and because I'm a good observer, I can spot archers somewhat at a distance. If something happens to Florina, you can blame me for it. You have my word that we will be as safe as we can." (1)

"I'm worried for the both of you, but I'm worried about Florina more."

"N-Not to worry, Lady Lyn… Since Caden's with me, she can stand up to the men. I-I'll be fine with her around," Florina replied.

Lyn looked at the two again. She was going to miss them for a while, especially since Florina is going to be out of her sight, and out of her hands. Lyn was always the one to look after her, and with Lyn not protecting her, of course she would be worried for Florina.

"I wish I could go with you two, but since I'm the princess and the heir to the throne, I really can't go anywhere. I wish you two good luck on your travel."

"Thank you, Lady Lyn," Caden said.

They both bowed and got on the pegasus. This was the first time that Caden was on a pegasus too. Caden was slightly afraid of heights, but she tried to put that in the back of her mind since this was a way that they would be going to Ostia faster. After all, Florina has been riding a pegasus practically ever since she joined the military. She didn't doubt her abilities, she trusted her. Caden wanted to ride a horse on her way there, but she was too inexperienced and not strong enough, in her opinion, to ride a horse long distances. She wanted to spend more time in Caelin so that she could ride a horse better, but she didn't want to wait… neither did Lyn for the sake of Florina. Caden thought that the horse and the rider are supposed to be… friends. The more they bonded, the more the horse would listen to the rider. Well, that's what Caden thinks, possibly talking out of the experiences that she's seen with soldiers, and other people with their horses.

As Huey was first flying, Caden was grabbing onto Florina, she feared that she would fall off. Florina noticed since Caden was grabbing her tightly. Usually it was the other way around; Florina would be the scared one. She tried to give Caden words of confidence, and it worked for a little while. Caden started to get used to it, but she was still very terrified since she kept on looking down at the ground. She imagined herself that she would fall off at anytime.

When night came, Huey landed on the ground so that he could rest. He could have gone further with only Florina on his back, but then he had one extra passenger. They gave him water, and Florina was showing Caden how to treat it and feed it.

A little later when the sun was still rising, they continued their trip to Ostia. As they were flying, Caden thought that she saw something… someone.

"Florina… I think I see an archer…" Caden pointed in a direction and squinted to get a better look.

"What? Where!" Florina panicked.

As Caden was observing, she saw that the person was lying down on his back… and in the middle of the field. She tried to look at him closer, but because of their height, she couldn't see well.

"H-Hold on… I don't know if he's an archer or not… but uh… huh…?"

"Huh? Is there something wrong? Is he coming after us?"

"He… doesn't seem like he's doing anything… he just looks like… he's tired. I don't know… just keep on going. _I don't want to go down… this reminds me too much of my travels with 'him.'_"

Florina looked at Caden confusingly, "K-Keep on going? That's strange coming from you, Caden. Why don't we help him?"

"For all we know, he might just be sleeping… or dead. This isn't our concern. Just keep on flying. Don't stop for him!"

"But… why? Don't you want to help people?"

"Of course I want to help people… not him though. He… can take care of himself. If we do go down there and he's still alive, _you_ wouldn't be the one talking to him, I would. I think that it would be troublesome, so just ignore him."

Florina couldn't believe what was coming out of Caden's mouth, and she tried to hide about what she felt about Caden right now. Florina ignored Caden's command and turned the direction towards the person. Caden was screaming because: 1) she didn't expect Florina to not listen to her and go down there, and 2) … she doesn't like the adrenaline rush. Huey stopped once they landed on the ground again and Florina got off and went up to the person. Caden followed; she wanted to have a word to Florina. But before she could do that, Florina gasped.

Caden went up to her to ask her about what the commotion was, and she found why. It was a person… yes, it was an archer, it was a man, and… he was dead. Caden was observing the body to see the wounds that he had. The wounds were made from arrows, swords, anima magic, and any other weapon that you could think of. Caden, as she was observing the body, was deeply thinking of something. _"This body… he looks young… about my age if I estimate. Looking from his recent wounds, he looks like the last hits he received are from magic tomes… more specifically… anima magic and a strong dark magic. He must have died… about two days ago. That's weird… he looks Etruian. He has the clothes and his looks are Etruian-ish as well. Why is there an archer from Etruia? It's unusual to see someone from Etruia who's not a magic user. That would put me in the same category too, haha, no time for going off subject… or laughing. He… looks so familiar though. I know he's from Etruia, but… he reminds me of someone… someone I probably know… but dammit, why can't I put my foot down? It's at the tip of my tongue."_

Caden was biting her thumbnail with frustration. Florina was looking at her.

"Is there something wrong, Caden?"

Caden broke her concentration and looked at Florina, "It's… nothing of your concern, Florina. I was just thinking… that's all. Well, let's go then. There's nothing else that we can see here. He's dead… and that's all there is to it."

Florina looked disappointed about Caden's replies, but she still listened to her. They got back on her Pegasus and started to go to Ostia. Caden was still thinking to herself, "Who is this guy? Why does he look familiar? He's from Etruia, but where?" Florina was wondering what Caden was thinking… hey, it's not wrong to ask her, right?

"Um… what are you thinking about, Caden?"

"Huh? Well… the body we saw… he just looks… like I've seen him before… I don't know where though."

"Hm… I see. _Well, there's really no reason to ask her further. I'll just leave it at that._"

For some reason, Caden felt sad after that encounter. She's seen many dead people before, but this person, who she probably knows, even if it was a slight chance that she did, had an impact on her. She tried shaking the emotion away, and returned to concentrating to go to Ostia.

Caden was still very scared about riding on a Pegasus. This was new to her, and she didn't think that she'll ever get used to this either, especially with her slight acrophobia. There were some instances when Caden wanted to go to sleep, but she thought that her sleeping might mean that she would fall off the horse… which was real dangerous considering their distance from the ground. She tried to stay awake any way she could. It was working for a while, but then she couldn't stay awake any longer, so she asked Florina if they could rest.

Finally, after a couple of days, they made it to the borderline of Ostia. Caden's heart was slightly racing for her meeting with Matthew again. It's been about three weeks since the last time they've seen each other; the same goes for Florina as well with Hector.

"Florina… we're here… in Ostia…" Caden said happily.

"Yes… we are. At last we get to see Lord Hector and the others again."

Others… there are a lot of others and one that comes to mind is that one, outgoing, narcissistic, happy-go-lucky cleric. They'll see her, they know, but they probably might not want to talk to her a lot. They were thankful for her to be in the group, but Caden thought of her to be… too much. Hector was sort of right about that replacement comment he made a few years back. It would have been more… peaceful. (2)

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_As me and Bayle were traveling, we saw dead bodies… where ever we went. There was no way through it. Some of the people, as we were observing some of the bodies, looked fresh… meaning that they just died. Others looked like they've been burned to death with a fire spell. I had to know these things because I felt like knowing them, and I like to find out how people died. But sometimes curiosity got both of us into trouble. On those events during the journey, when we saw the newly slain bodies, bandits would ambush us, and Bayle was always there to protect me. _

_I felt so helpless whenever it came to him fighting bandits. One of the reasons that I wanted to learn how to use a sword was… because I just wanted to learn. The other reason I wanted to learn was… I wanted to help people and not just stand around. I'm a horrible magic user, which is very ironic coming from a person from Etruia, but that's where my tactics came to play. I guess my ability to strategize sort of made up for me not knowing how to use magic. When we were ambushed I felt like I needed some way to protect myself if Bayle wasn't there to help me. I don't want to be the one tying him down… he needs to fight the bandits, and protect me. I didn't want him to do that… we just met and all, and why would he want to risk his life just for a simple stranger… acquaintance… friend, as he says? I was determined to learn how to use a sword. You know… Bayle's idea of combining different techniques together doesn't sound that bad…_

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End of Chapter 6: Travel

They're almost there to Ostia, but what's in their way? What will happen at their stay there?

**Author's note:**

Caden always can change her attitude just like that :snaps, haha. I think it's a little fun having a personality like that, you never know what that person's thinking. Isn't that called borderline personality disorder or something? Haha, just to let you know, Caden doesn't have that.

1) Well, I'm positive that Florina's Pegasus's name is Huey. But please correct me if I'm wrong and I'll fix it up as soon as I can.

2) Part of Hector and Serra Support Conversation C:

Serra – "Well, I'm the only sister in this army!"

Hector – "Yeah, that's true, now that you mention it. Of course, a replacement would work just as well..."

**Read Me… Again! **Heh… Sorry for this update. I have been busy doing work and I don't think I can keep up with me updating every other Monday, so instead, I'll just update on a Monday, but I don't know what Monday I'll be updating upon. Did that make sense? Oh well, this is due to the lack of material and trying to make my story seem more interesting. Once again, if you have any suggestions, e-mail me at eyedonno89 at yahoo. Please don't leave a suggestion in your review. I check my e-mail usually everyday, and I do read your reviews, but it's better for me if you e-mail it to me. I won't bite, haha.


	7. Travel Part II

Hey! It's a Monday! That means that it's time for me to update... or feeling like updating, haha. N E ways, I hope you all don't mind that I reply to your reviews. I think that this reply function is really helpful. Alright then. Here's chapter 7.

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**Chapter 7: Travel Part II**

It was only a matter of time before they see who they wanted to see. But it was still going to take them a couple of more days before they reached the castle. Before that time came, they took shelter in an abandoned fort when the sky turned black. As they were eating their rations, Caden was thinking to herself, _"Just two more days."_

After they ate and had a light conversation, they put out the fire and went to sleep. Bandits were standing a few decameters away.

"Look there, two pawns that we can ambush."

"Are you mad? They're both women! It would be very disgraceful if we attacked them!"

"But they can fight back; there must be a reason why those two women are alone."

"You have a point there…"

"Hey, Pinole, your brother says he needs help!"

"What? What did he do this time?"

"He said that he spotted a village that he wants to raid, but his problem is that he only has a small amount of people in his group that he's asking for more; he doesn't want this raid to be a failure."

"Alright then, let's move out everybody. We have nothing better to do."

The bandits left Caden and Florina to be and traveled to where that bandit's brother was at.

The two traveled closer to Ostia's castle a while after they woke up.

"Florina, stop. Look there," Caden said.

Florina turned around and saw a village that was being attacked by bandits.

"We should help them. Ostia's castle is not that far away."

"Sure."

Huey turned to fly towards the village._ "Florina would have a very difficult time if she fought by herself. I should participate since this bandit group is not that big from what we see right now. I haven't fought a real battle in years. I hope I'm not going to slow Florina down."_ Huey started descending as they closed in towards the bandit-infested village.

"Hey, Boss, aren't those the women we saw last night in the fort?"

"Yep, it looks like them. Are they coming here?"

"They have their weapons ready; they probably want to fight us."

"Since you put it that way, there's no reason holding back to these women since they've come to defend the village."

Caden jumped off Huey once they reached the ground, "Florina, how does your sword look?"

"It can only withstand a couple more hits."

"Do you have a spare?"

"Yes, I do."

"Alright. When your sword breaks, quickly discard it and use the spare sword. Using your lance in this situation will put you at a disadvantage."

"Understood."

"Alright, now your first move is to fly into the village. I'll go and get the ones in the front."

"Caden, you're helping too?"

"'Course, this is too much for you to handle by yourself. Since you can fly, don't worry about the bandits in the front and try not to make the bandits group onto you. Avoid big spaces. Try to fight in between the houses so they come at you one by one."

"Alright, I understand."

"Okay, let's move out."

Florina flew over the village houses making her way in between them to take care of the people in the inside. Before Caden reached the entrance, she attacked the bandits stationed on the outside. She cut through those bandits easily with her sword and she rushed into the village. _"Two bandits down… err… unconscious. Now the rest are in this big box."_ When Florina saw that Caden entered the village, she made her way near her.

"Caden, where is their leader?"

"By the looks of it, it seems that there are two leaders. One there, and another there," Caden answered pointing, "It will be hard getting to them with all these other bandits in the way. We need to take care or them first."

"Got it."

They advanced forward to get to the two leaders. It's very tough with only two people in your party, being sort of outnumbered by the bandits. Swing after swing, evade, hit, block, not a second of rest. Bandits were coming towards her and Florina in everyway that weren't blocked. She was _really_ not used to this. Caden knelt to the ground, exhausted trying to attack.

"No good," she panted, "There are too many of them."

Florina was staying near Caden, defending her, making sure that Caden doesn't die. Caden didn't have any time to use an elixir.

"We seriously… need help," Caden thought.

Caden couldn't concentrate, but she went on. Her vision was distorted and in front of her she saw a blur. When she looked to the entrance, she saw three figures: one a brownish-red, another blue, and the last one white and pink. They… they weren't going after Caden and Florina, plus… those blobs look strangely familiar. Caden took care of the enemy in front of her and the she rubbed her eyes and shook her head so her vision could become clear once again. The three figures were helping Caden and Florina. They were attacking the bandits. As her vision restored, she saw the brownish-red blob run up to her.

"M-Matthew!" Caden yelled surprised, "Lord Hector! …Serra."

"Caden, are you alright?" Matthew asked running up to her and grabbing her shoulders."

"I'm… I'm alright. Florina and I have been trying to get all the bandits out of here."

"Hey, you don't look so good. Here, let me mend your wounds," Serra said as she used her mend staff on Caden.

"Only you two were going after a bunch of guys? That's very unlike you."

"When we were looking, we thought that there were only a few bandits here. We were very wrong."

"Very wrong indeed. Well then, it was a good thing that we came then, right?" Serra asked.

Caden nodded and used her sword as her support. "Thank you. We're very lucky to have you three to come."

"What's the situation, Caden?" Hector asked.

"Two leaders… there. If we take them out, their lackeys might leave."

Hector first went over the check up on Florina before anything else. Caden and Matthew went to take on the two leaders. The fight went on for a little while until they took care of the bandit leaders. The rest of the bandits didn't leave, so the five had to clear out the rest of them.

"Phew… and that's the last of them. You won't have to worry about those bandits again, we've taken care of them for you," Caden said to the village magistrate.

Caden walked to the front of the village to see those two bandits that she left unconscious. They were gone. Did they run away? That's a little dishonorable for a bandit, is it not? It's no use thinking about them now; they're only two people so they're not much of a threat.

"Caden, I never knew you knew how to use a sword," Hector said walking up to her followed by Matthew and Florina.

"I get that a lot. Only a few people before three years ago knew I knew how to use one. But now, the secret's out, and there's no use hiding it anymore I guess," Caden said clenching her left hand. It was sore because of all the fighting she did right now. (1)

"Something wrong with your arm?"

"I'm not used to all the fighting. So, Matthew, Lord Hector, Serra, what were you doing out of the castle? Lord Hector, aren't you supposed to be ruling over Ostia?"

"It's fine for now. The people don't know about Uther's death yet. I'm free for only a little while more."

"Don't you think your procrastinating your duties?"

"I'm not use to the office, and my brother didn't leave me a lot of work to do. I want to spend this time _not _working because I know that when I start working for a long time, that is going to take up the majority of my day."

"Ostia's castle is about a couple of hours away from here, right? How could you travel all the way down here?"

"Well, we just heard that you and Florina were coming. We didn't know that you were coming this early, the three of us were checking on the nearby villages. And so, when we came to this one, we just miraculously saw you two fighting."

"Hm… this is coincidence. Florina, are you hurt?"

"It's… nothing bad. I just have some cuts here and there."

"… I'm sorry… you getting hurt is my fault, Florina. I told Lady Lyn that I would look over you."

"My injuries are nothing serious. There's nothing to worry about."

Caden slightly smiled, "I'm glad."

Her legs gave out and she knelt down.

"Caden… are you alright?" Matthew asked.

"… No… I don't think I can walk for a while. I'm kind of tired."

"Serra, can you do anything to help her condition."

"I can only heal wounds, not fatigue. An elixir might help her."

"I'm fine… I'm not that tired. I don't want to waste an elixir on that."

"Alright, that's fine. Matthew, carry Caden back to the Ostian castle," Hector commanded.

"Yes, sir." He looked to Caden, "Are you too weak to hop on my back?"

"I think I'll manage."

She started standing up and she went on Matthew's back. Matthew was walking a slight distance away from Hector, Florina, and Serra, so him and Caden could have sometime to chat privately… well, sort of.

"I-I'm not heavy, am I?"

"You're fine. The castle's not that far away, so there's no need for you to worry.

"… So, how's everything going for you? How's Ostia?"

"It's been going alright."

"It looks like everyone is starting to settle down. Lady Lyn and Lord Eliwood are busy with their own regions. They both wanted to come to bring me to the next castle, but they couldn't. The only thing that they did was see me off."

"Yeah, Lord Hector is the same way. He's been in his room for a small time working on the things that his brother has left him. He's probably working harder than the other two."

"Oh really? Why's that?"

"Well, so far, we've succeeded in keeping Lord Uther's death from the people. You know him. He didn't want people to panic and think that it's the end of the world because Lord Hector is going to be the one in power now, haha, don't tell him about the last part."

Serra looked at Caden and then Matthew. Her wit told her that Caden liked Matthew, and because Caden usually keeps things to herself, she tried not to show it. Serra didn't get it; her instincts told her that Caden wasn't compatible for anyone. Well, she really didn't know what month Caden was born, but she thought that she has a dark affinity, which Serra just most likely guessed due to the fact that she hardly spoke to Caden. Serra's instincts told her that Caden was too mediocre for any man's taste. She didn't stand out as much as moi. (2, 3)

Caden laughed, "Ha, sure, alright. Yes, I think he would be a little upset if he heard that."

"Maybe a little more than upset, he would probably kill me if he heard that."

"I think 'kill' is a little too much, haha. I would probably say that he would um…"

"Chase me around until he got to hit me with his axe a couple of times, trying to knock some sense into me to not bad mouth him about him being marquess."

"Heh… err… that sounds rather violent," Caden said with a slight look of concern on her face, fearing that it might be true.

"Aw, don't worry, Caden. Lord Hector isn't that violent unless he's really mad, trust me," Matthew answered with a smile as he turned back and looked at the tactician's concerned face. Caden smiled back, hearing Matthew's reply warmed her heart a little. She knew that he was joking about Hector doing such a thing, but listening to him answer back because she was worried made her happy.

"Thank you, for the reassurance, Matthew."

"No problem."

"Hey, didn't Lord Hector say that he _wasn't_ working hard?"

"That's true, but he always gives himself breaks so he could rest for a time. His work is piling up, so the free-time Lord Hector you see now will not be appearing again for a long, long time.

There was a silence, and then Caden asked, "Hey Matthew, did you like someone before Leila?"

"…? Hm… I don't think I have. Why do you ask?"

"Out of curiosity, that's all. Well… it's also because I had someone I lo-…iked once. It was five years ago, though." Caden sighed, and then continued, "Sorry for bringing up that question. It was pretty pointless."

"I don't mind. We hardly got to talk before. It's kind of nice doing this now."

"Yeah, you're right. Although I don't like talking about myself, if I think it's alright to talk about it, I'll say it freely."

Matthew looked over his shoulder at Caden for a while as she was looking up at the sky.

"You know, you're very stubborn and you show that you keep your feelings to yourself, you know that?" Matthew blurted out saying matter-of-factly.

"Eh… _He hit the target right on the mark._ What makes you say that?"

"It's sort of a good way since it's you. With you, it's like you won't give information to somebody until they give you information in exchange. The more valuable the information, the more you need in return. Although you use that for combat and gaining information, you use it in your regular life. You don't use it for information that you want to tell people, you use it when you have a story to tell, but you don't want to tell it."

"… What are you, some kind of psychologist?"

"Nope, just speaking my thoughts."

"You're very reasonable, and you always say things at the right time."

"All in a thief's work."

"But you're not on a thief duty right now, aren't you?"

"That's classified information," he said joking.

Caden gave a friendly glare to him, wondering if he was joking or not.

Caden let out a big sigh and rested her head on Matthew's shoulder and wrapped her arms around him. If you didn't know any better, it looked like Caden was hugging Matthew from behind. The only difference was that Matthew was carrying her.

"I'm tired, you don't mind if I sleep, do you?"

"Not at all. I can bring you to a room in the castle if we reach there before you wake up."

"That'd be nice," she responded half-consciously.

----------

End of Chapter 7: Travel Part II

Many thanks to Riyu 21 for helping me think of the first part of this chapter!

**Author's Note:**

If you haven't figured it out yet, I made Florina a Falcoknight

1) Just for the sake of her sort of being like me, I'm making her left handed because I'm ambidextrous and I use my left hand when I hold a weapon (Well… when I pretend to hold a weapon.). Yay for left handed people! **Warning: My thoughts. I will go on a tangent:** I think I'm making this story a minority story… when I look at it from different perspectives. The tactician is female, this is a tactician x Matthew pairing, and the tactician is left handed. It might be confusing for you if you read this, but these are just my thoughts if you slightly understand. If you do… it's a miracle, haha. **Thoughts have ended. **

2) Err… Well, there was this one chat that I read between Kent and Farina. I wish I knew what the other months were. Hey, I can always make up the months, but it wouldn't be the same. tearN E ways, actually, I was born in February, that means that my actual affinity… or my tactician's affinity is Ice/Water… what ever it is, haha.

3) It's a support conversation between Sain and Serra. I think it's their A conversation. N E ways, I think Serra is one of those people who like guessing who will end up with whom.


	8. This and That

Yay another update! And only three weeks after the last one! N E ways, to tell you this, I have a plot in my head, and I write down anything that goes through my mind that might help me continue with the story. For right now, I don't think I'll be updating that much… well, not every week or every two weeks kinda thing, since I have a lot of plot holes and writer's block in my story. But don't worry. I'll finish this story eventually (and usually eventually for me means not ever doing it, but I promise that I'll get this story done.). I've also been busy with school work, and you know how all of that goes. Since it's the end of the school year and finals are coming, teachers always give you a lot of work.

This chapter is a little longer than my other ones. So, it sort of makes it as a gift for people who were patient. N E ways, enough of me talking, enjoy chapter 8!

**----------**

**Chapter 8:** **This and That**

Caden woke up in a room that she wasn't familiar with. She sat up and looked at her surroundings. She was on a four-post bed. She was in a big room with accessories in there as if it were a modern castle bedroom. Caden stretched and rubbed her eyes. She moved to the edge of the bed and noticed that the only thing that someone took off of her was her boots. She put them back on, stood up and walked to the door. She opened it and she looked around; Matthew did take her into the castle and into a room as she was sleeping on his back. She took a couple of steps out and closed her door. Matthew appeared out of nowhere and Caden jumped; surprised that she saw him, and she fell down on her backside.

"Oh, ha, sorry about that. You're not used to me doing that, aren't you?"

"D-Do I look like I'm used to it?"

"Yeah, you're right."

Caden helped herself up and looked at Matthew.

"So um… how long have I been sleeping?"

"Just for a couple of hours, that's all. When we arrived at the castle, Lord Hector got some of his work done, but now he says that he's done with his work for today. He decided to push the rest of his work today for him to do tomorrow. Maybe you can talk to him now, if you want to."

"…Nah… Florina can do that. They need to have more time together."

"What makes you say that?"

She smirked, "Didn't you see them while we were traveling? Florina always tried to talk to Lord Hector, but then she was too shy, you know. Her Pegasus actually brought Lord Hector to Florina, Huey was probably too sick and tired about Florina being too scared to talk to Lord Hector by herself."

"Hey, that was true now that I think of it. So you're leaving them alone right now, are you some kind of matchmaker or something? Is this all falling according to your plan?"

"Yes, I am a matchmaker now that I think about it. And a second answer is a yes too; Florina was partly the reason why I came here. I have commanded people to stay at others' side for a while when we were traveling," she smiled now realizing that she was a matchmaker, "If it wasn't for me, I guess a lot of people wouldn't have met each other, you know. _Not only did it help people like each other, a lot of others found their relatives who they haven't seen in a long time._" (1)

"Hm, you're right. Since you're not going to talk to Lord Hector, what are you going to do now?"

"I feel… like talking and training."

"Alright then," he chuckled, "We have a training room on the first basement level of this castle. Let me show you where it is."

"Actually, I was thinking that I can work on my footwork outside."

"Oh, sure."

They went outside and Caden looked at the flora surrounding the castle. She loved the scenery, and she saw that there was a big open field on the right of the castle. She pointed there and looked at Matthew, and they decided to walk there. They walked near a big tree where there was a lot of shade, but Matthew decided to take his seat on a broken tree trunk nearby. Caden took out her sword and started practicing her moves. Matthew was watching as she was doing that. _"Slash, turn, slash, thrust."_ She was saying in her head what her body should respond to. For a last move, she leaped forwards and extended her arm in front of her."Your sword handling is like watching a dance. What kind of style is it?"

Caden stopped, she was slightly blushing, "Well, it's my own style. I get some moves from other sword play styles."

"That sounds fun. How many different styles have you obtained?"

"I'd say… from the top of my head… about five different styles."

"So that means that you learned all the styles as we were traveling?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much what it is."

"Say, why don't we spar right now; your style against a thief's?"

"Err… um… I'm uh… not that good with a sword. As I said, I'm still an amateur."

"Well, part of learning how to use a sword is to use it in live combat. Why don't we do that now then?"

"I've done that in Caelin against Lady Lyn and a trainee over there, and we've fought the bandits off today in the village. I've had enough sparring for a month," she said trying to prove her point.

"Fine, fine, I'll ask you when you're ready."

"Thank you for under- ahhh!"

Caden didn't know that Matthew was like that. He leaped forward to Caden and took out his dagger in the process. He started swinging his dagger towards Caden's face. Caden still had her sword at hand, so she blocked his dagger with her sword. Her sword was only centimeters apart from her face.

"Looks like you have good reflexes."

"This is the second time this happened to me! Catching me off guard like that, that's not honorable!"

"I'm a thief, not a swordsman. I don't listen to all those rules," he said matter-of-factly.

Matthew was pushing his dagger and moving his face closer to hers. Caden was starting to get nervous, so she jumped backwards as she forced her sword forward so she could gain a half a second getting away. As Caden was leaping back, she raised her foot off the ground and when she landed, she stepped on her robe which jerked her neck downwards, which made her start falling backwards. Matthew ran up to her and caught her before she fell. _"Whoa, he's that fast? I didn't notice him coming."_

"I uh… err… thank you, Matthew," she said standing up as fast as she can.

"It looks like you're a good fighter."

Caden turned the other way, "I wouldn't think so."

"Why do you doubt yourself?"

"Because… I do. I tried using my sword skill years before to defend someone. It was only one slight mistake that I won. That was all luck, it wasn't my skill."

"That was years ago, probably when you were first learning. You have gained more knowledge with your sword skills, so you won't make the same mistake."

"No… that's not it. The reason why I didn't want to use the sword again was because I was weak minded, and I couldn't stand watching people die. I didn't want to watch that again."

"Someone can be killed when there are weapons involved. That's a given."

"No… you don't get it. I can't stand killing people instantly with my hands. No matter how bad they are, I didn't want to stand there and look at them as I took their life away, I was more weak minded when I actually saw them die before my eyes. When I was first traveling, the one who I was traveling with, Bayle, made that suggestion for me. He did the 'duties' that I didn't want to do. Sometimes I would use my sword to weaken them. Or when I cut off the limbs of the people, they would die after I leave…" She raised the sword in her hand so she could see it. "But that's all. That one mistake... with that one mistake, I killed someone when I was there to see it. After that, I said that I would become stronger. I did for a little while, but every time, I would mess up, and that mess up would cost me my life... or theirs if I used it in real battle."

"… Bayle? You were traveling with someone before Lady Lyndis?"

She tried to get her mind out of her depressing state, and to Matthew's question, "Yes, I started my journey about five years ago. About six months before I met Lady Lyn, I was traveling with Bayle."

"So then, putting it together by what you said earlier today, Bayle was the one that you liked."

She turned to face Matthew and nodded her head, "I did like him. But he died. It's hard to talk about it now, and that's probably another story if you want to hear it… and remind me that you want to hear it."

"That would mean that it was hard for you seeing us fight the enemies, right?"

"Well, I've gotten used to it, seeing others kill other people. All I'm weak minded of is when _I_ do it."

Caden put her sword back in its sheath, and Matthew put his dagger back in its holster.

"Alright, that's enough for one day. I'm going to rest."

Caden lied down on the grass; she looked up and closed her eyes. Matthew sat next to her.

"Ah… it has been a while since I have rested like this."

"Oh yeah? You must have been working yourself hard for a while then," Matthew said sitting next to her.

"Not even recently. I've been pushing myself to harder and harder for several years. I never gave myself a very long break, until now. I haven't rested this long, or worked my mind this little ever since they day I left my family in Etruia. Once I started my journey to becoming a tactician, I would always work myself very hard."

"Now that you mention it, you're from Etruia? And how did you become a tactician?"

"Yes, I'm from Etruia. And well err… it was all because I was selfish, to put it simply."

"You were selfish? I don't get it."

"Another day, another story. It's a long story, and I don't want to bore you to death."

"I wouldn't think you would bore me. I'm interested about your life."

Caden opened her eyes, took her eyes off from the clear blue sky and averted her eyes towards Matthew, "Really?"

"Yeah, you're a young tactician, possibly younger than half of the people we traveled with, I know that you're a few years younger than me. You were an inexperienced strategist when Lady Lyndis first met you, and now you have become one of the most famous tacticians in Elibe."

"I wouldn't say Elibe. More like Lycia, Bern, and possibly Etruia as well."

"Still, that's pretty amazing though. We started traveling together about three years ago, didn't we? And look where you are now."

Matthew was right. In only three years, she's about as well known as a marquess. Most of the military men in Elibe knew her, she couldn't not admit it.

"Why do you always have to be right, Matthew?" she asked sounding slightly annoyed but joking.

"Eh… I don't know. I guess that's just me," he said.

"Hm… I see. You know, I'm interested about your life too. You being a spy and all, don't you get to see a lot of interesting things?"

"Well, I guess you can say that. Spying is fun from time to time, like when I went with you and Lady Lyndis to go to Caelin."

"That was your job back then?"

"Yes, it was. Lord Uther asked me to check on what all this commotion was about on Lord Hausen's granddaughter. I was sent to spy on your progress, and what better way of keeping check on her than to join your numbers?" (2)

"Yes, I see. It makes sense. I thought you were supposed to keep your missions a secret. Why are you telling me this?"

"Well, it's over already, and what I'm telling you wouldn't seriously affect something big."

"Right… got it. But as we have both experienced, spying can be dangerous too."

Matthew nodded his head.

"So then, back to talking about you, are you going to tell me how you became tactician?"

"Sure I'll tell you… some other day, as I said so earlier. You don't need to know all about me in one day. I'm staying in Ostia for a while."

"Yeah, alright then. I know what you mean."

After Caden rested for a while, she stood back up and smoothed her robe.

"I guess I'll just stay in the castle for the rest of the day. I'll most likely be in the library, studying."

"Isn't being in the library and studying working your mind? I thought you said you wanted to rest."

"Matthew…" she sighed and looked down. "Yes, you're right, but studying in the library for me is like a small way to work my mind. I don't have to think on my feet and think of the consequences for my actions… unless it's 'What if I read this book first' or 'Damn, I shouldn't have read this one; it's horrible!'"

Caden chuckled after her joke, and Matthew did too.

"Well then, maybe I should accompany you. As I said, you're interesting, and I would like to see what you read. Maybe it's a good time for me to look at a book as well."

---------

_I asked Bayle about his way to attain information and use that to tie in with his sword play. He was more than happy to tell me, and he even showed me some of the techniques that he has made up himself. During those times, he said that the way I could get better was if I used it if we were fighting seriously. The only way we could fight seriously was if we ran into bandits, which happened often since it was only the two of us traveling. _

_When I was first starting out, he noticed as we were fighting the bandits, I would seriously wound them, not kill them. He asked me about that, and told me the consequences of doing that._

_"If you leave someone alive as dangerous as he is, he can gather more people and conspire against us. That wouldn't be too good for us, you know. Cutting the arms and legs off of a person sometimes doesn't kill them."_

_"Y-Yes, I get it."_

_"Alright, that's good."_

_"But… Bayle, I'm not… I can't kill anybody. I can't even kill animals to save myself. I hate thinking that I've killed someone or something. That's why I don't stab them in their chest where they could die instantly."_

_"Hm… well, if you can't do that then, I'll kill the people for you. Just weaken your enemy, and I'll kill them for you."_

_"Err… that sounds funny, but I'll go with it. Thank you, Bayle."_

_"It's better to be safe than sorry. But you know, you're going to have to grow some backbone sooner or later. I'm not going to stand up for you all the time."_

_"…Liar."_

_He smiled, "Haha, we'll see about that."_

_Bayle rubbed my head which messed up my hair. I got mad and swung my hand to hit Bayle, but Bayle ducked and he made me miss. He smiled and laughed at me. I tried to hit Bayle again but Bayle was running away from me. I chased after him, but he was faster. Without second guessing, I decided to take out my fire tome, opened it, and did the only spell that I knew and did horrible to conjure most of the time. I chanted and fire came from under me and shot towards Bayle. From there, Bayle was hit with the fireball, but only his robe was caught, so he jumped down and started rolling to put out the fire. As he was doing that, I caught up to him, and waited until he was done._

_"Geez, I knew that you had a fire tome with you, but I thought you said you only use it for emergency purposes."_

_"This was an emergency purpose. I needed to avenge for my hair that you messed up, and because you evaded my first attempt to hit you."_

_I knelt down to look at him, and I tapped my chin, "Perhaps this isn't enough of a payback than I deserve."_

_"Hey, you got me with your fire spell, and getting me like this, resorting to falling on my knees, is a huge thing to do, alright? I think you have more than enough payback from me," he said with a smile._

_I smiled back, and helped him up, and that was that. It was fun having Bayle around. He's talkative, outgoing, and he acts like a kid sometimes. He's also very thoughtful, there was no way that I wouldn't start liking him… and start to fall in love with him. That was inevitable._

---------

"Father is not here in this world, but yet he talks to me in my sub-conscious," Robbin said.

"What is he saying to you?"

"Not really much saying… it's more like… he's trying to show me images… like parts of his life."

"What kind of parts?"

"…Last time I saw, it was a group of people. One had red hair, another was a woman who had long green hair, and another young man with blue hair. All of them looked somewhat noble. There was also someone else in the vision. This person had reddish-brown colored hair, and she had a big dull green colored robe on."

"Yes, I see. Father was probably showing you the ones who we should go after. If we run into somebody who looks like the person in the vision, tell me, and we'll take care of them."

"What if they were innocents?"

"It doesn't matter. Everyone in the world should die."

"If that should happen, wouldn't we need some more people accompany us so we could ambush them?"

"Not to worry, dear sister. Father has left us yet another present if something like this happened."

He took out another book from his small bag that he brought around; the book was filled with spells and chants. He turned to a page where it said how Nergal made his morphs.

"Hm… it says right here that in order to make these morphs, we need energy that's called 'quintessence,'" Dugan said.

"Oh really? So how does it say we can get this quintessence?"

Dugan read Nergal's entry silently, and evilly smiled, "It seems simple. Don't worry; we can get quintessence as easily as conjuring magic. Leave it to me. But making these morphs will take a lot of time…"

"We don't need to avenge Father that quickly, we can wait for a couple of years or something."

"Yes, we need to take care of avenging Father's death as soon as possible. Never mind the idea about the morphs then, we'll just recruit some more people to work with us. It's a better idea. But this quintessence, it looks like it can become really useful."

"Dugan, I thought when we were first leaving, you said that you had your own little group with you. So, where are they?"

"I have my connections. They're… scattered, and they would come to me when I need them."

"They sound more like servants more than friends."

"Shush, big sis," he said knowing that she was right, "They're my _friends._ I have known them for a while, and they don't wait for me on their hands and knees."

"Dugan… Oh… never mind. I'll ask you some other time."

---------

Hector was generous enough to give Florina and Caden a room with two beds. Florina wanted to talk to Caden at night, so they stayed in the same room. Florina was already under the sheets, ready to go to sleep. Caden came into the room and went to her bed. She sat on the edge and started taking off her boots.

"Hey, Florina, how did everything go with Lord Hector?"

"I-It's was… alright. I… I um actually had the courage to talk to Lord Hector this time. Actually, he did most of the talking, and I would reply once in a while. And he was the one who walked up to me."

Although Caden wasn't looking at her, she could tell that she sounded shy. Caden laughed.

"Haha, typical of you, Florina. You need to learn how to speak up, you know. Did I ever tell you, before I was traveling, I was like you. I was really shy, and it was hard for me to talk to others."

"No, you haven't told me before. And how did that all change?"

"…Bayle. Practically everything about me that you see before you, it was because of Bayle."

"You learned a lot from Bayle then, right?"

"…Yes, I did. I have experienced a lot as I was traveling with him, good and bad."

Florina didn't want to talk anymore about Bayle, and neither did Caden. Once Caden took off her boots, she blew the candle out, took off her robe and went under the sheets.

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End of Chapter 8: This and That

**Author's note:**

I kinda think that part of the dialogue in this chapter is a little lame or confusing.

1)** It's a spoiler on this note if you haven't read Dart-Rebecca, Dart-Wil, and Canas-Nino A supports as well as Karel-Karla.** There are some surprising things, and the not so surprising ones.

**(Spoiler starts)** I don't know if they told you that or not, but as it's a little obvious, Karel and Karla are brother and sister. Dart may be Rebecca's brother, you know Dan, the one that left with will about five years ago and never came backIf you would like to know what happened to him, I'll tell you: Wil and Dan first left Rebecca's village so they could make money for their family. They separated when they were at port Badon (I don't know if they gave a reason) and that was the last time they saw each other. Something happened to Dan, and he was bloody and everything, just laying there on the port, he couldn't move. Fargus saved Dan's life and in exchange for Dan's life, all of Dan's memories were gone. He forgot everything. So, I think Fargus started calling him Dart, that's why he became a pirate, because Fargus saved him. Or that's what the story says. N E ways, as for **Canas and Nino's support**, Canas might be Nino's uncle because Nino's real mother's name is the same one as Canas's wife's sister. Did that make sense? **(Spoiler ends) **Wow, this is a big note, haha.

2) Chapter 7 of Lyn's story, or that one chapter with all the shamans and when you get Nils. Hector is in one of those houses on the bottom of the map. If you visit it with Matthew, Hector actually has a conversation with him unlike if you let someone else visit him. Otherwise, he'll just talk to himself about why Eliwood is so late, haha.


	9. Let's Go!

Hey guys! Finally another chapter finished. This took me another three weeks. I'm kinda getting a little behind on this updating stuff, but at least I'm keeping my promise on updating on a Monday. Actually, I almost forgot to update since I have sort of a busy schedule for the summer, heh. N E ways, here's the 9th chapter.

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**Chapter 9: Let's go!**

Florina already left and made her bed once Caden woke up. She also rose up from her bed, put on her traveling robe, and made her bed. _"Florina is already up? Wow… that was quick."_

She walked out of the room trying to keep an eye out for the thief so he wouldn't surprise her again. She took a step out of the door; so far, so good. Another step, no surprise here. She closed her door and looked left and right.

"M… Matthew?" she asked in a low voice.

He appeared next to Caden and said, "Good morning, Caden. How may I help you?"

"Good Morning, Matthew. You're not working today?"

"I'm a spy. I don't get major missions like spying a lot. I do some simple tasks often, but Lord Hector has asked me to take these days off and accompany you in his place. But since you have brought up that Florina likes Lord Hector, he's probably giving me work and keeping me away from him so I wouldn't interfere."

Caden smiled and looked at Matthew, "I see. Well Matthew, I thank you for spending time with me. You could have easily left me, but you have decided to stay here and talk to me."

"I don't have a choice, though. I don't mean it in a bad way; without you here, I'm bored most of the time. So I should thank you for that."

"What about Serra? Don't you talk to her on occasions to relieve your boredom?"

"I do sometimes, but she usually talks about herself, and she talks about herself to anyone she can find. It doesn't matter if I'm not there."

"Sigh… typical of her, haha. She reminds me of my brother in some cases."

"Would you like to tell me about him?"

"Sure, but can we talk somewhere else?"

"Let's go to the garden. We can talk there, and I remember you saying something like you have another story to tell."

"Oh, that… alright then. Since I'm going to tell you about my brother, I guess it's no harm telling you about my parents as well since I did say that I was. Actually, talking about my family will kind of show you how I became a tactician. Oh, I almost forgot, do you know where Florina is?"

"The last time I saw her was this morning. She was out in the stables taking care of her Pegasus. Are you looking for her?"

"No, not really. I was just wondering where she was. Her bed was already made when I woke up." She was thinking, and then she laughed, "Maybe later she's going to go to Lord Hector's room and start talking to him again."

"That _is_ a possibility."

"Yeah, I think that Lord Hector might be the only man who she's not afraid of."

"True. Well then, shall we make out way to the garden?"

They walked to the back of Ostia's castle where the garden is located. It looked more elegant with an abundance of flowers which, Caden thought, doesn't fit Lord Hector at all since he was all muscular and broad, he's nothing like the flowers in his garden. But knowing that Ostia and Lord Hector is the center of Lycia, it has to be one of the best looking in Lycia. The garden was bigger compared to Caelin's and Pherae's; to see every detail of the whole garden, she would have to take a couple of hours to examine. _"My, Ostia's garden is beautiful; everything goes in unison with each other. There's nothing that I see that goes out of place. Note to self: Observe the garden again and study the flowers and flora that are not in the other lands of Lycia... or I can probably do that after I talk to Matthew."_

"So then?"

"'So then' what?"

"You said that you would continue your story about how you became a tactician. It's the next day, so that means you have no excuses this time."

"Am I really that interesting to you? I didn't think you would have remembered."

"Oh, just spit it out already."

"Alright, alright! I never knew you were so forceful about learning about some one. …Um… are you sure you won't be bored?"

"If you're telling it, I won't be."

The sat down on a bench and Caden cleared her throat.

"Alright then, here it goes:

"As I said before, I lived in Etruia until I was 15. Before that time, I grew up with a mother, father, and a younger brother, in my house. Those three were very talented people.

"My mother, Teena, is a cleric and she's well known in the temple that she volunteers at. Whenever someone had something wrong with them health wise, they would ask my mother to heal the person. She's nice, friendly, and also a beautiful woman and she put her family before other duties. People loved her, and sometimes people would come from another part of Etruia just to see her. She has mastered learning how to use all the staffs that's known in Elibe.

"Every time I would get hurt, or fall, of course my mother would always heal me. She knew that I wasn't good at magic, but she always encouraged me to try to get better. When I temporarily gave up trying to be a mage, she tried to make me a cleric, but then I was worse at using a healing staff than using a fire tome. She never gave up on me though, until I said that I didn't want to learn magic anymore, haha.

"My father, Allard, is a well known sage as well. He's one of the best magic users in our town. He's usually out on missions he's given by the military he volunteered for. Sometimes he would be out of our town for weeks at a time, but he would always come back alive. On his team, everyone would come back, a lot of other men wanted to be in his army because he was a passionate man, and he wouldn't leave anyone behind.

"It's a little embarrassing to say this but, he was one of the most handsome men in our town as well. I have to admit that, even though he is my father. My father was very strict on me and on my brother. Sometimes he was so strict on us that he made me cry because I couldn't do it. He wasn't really the 'family man' when I was really young. He wanted me and my brother to be the strongest kids in our village. He could get really competitive with the family at times, especially if he's competing against my brother. They both did it for fun, but in a serious manner. He never really competed with the other villagers. So far, the wins are my father 50, my brother 23. It's a big difference in the odds, but my brother has been catching up to him fairly quickly.

"My brother, Gregory, is only one year younger than me. He's outgoing and very talkative, the very opposite personality of me. Greg was only three or four at the time when he learned how to use magic; he first picked up a book and started reading it. People call him a natural because he learned it himself, with only minimal help from our parents and instructors. My parents weren't even considering of hiring a tutor for him. He's more advanced than all of his friends, and he sometimes goes with my father on missions.

"Greg always made fun of me too when I was living there, you know, the regular younger brother stuff. Always saying that I look ugly, and making fun of the way I make a mistake or when I do something. He also made fun of me for him having more friends than me. I don't know if other brothers do that, but I got used to him. He's also taller than me, so sometimes he uses that to his advantage and made fun of me even more for being short. But, you know I still love him. But he was concerned when I was hurt, even if we got into a huge argument or something. Usually when we were arguing, his comeback line was 'well, at least I can use magic!' haha!

"And then there's me, the quiet one, the anti-social, and the one usually inside her room studying and thinking over problems, only going outside once in a while to study something on the outside or talking with one of my friends. I'm the one who has exceptional magic users in my family, but I can only conjure a simple fire, I'm only successful about half the time. There are so many mages who can use Elfire, monks who can use Divine, and clerics who can use Mend, and they are younger than me. Although they were the ones who can use magic, my teacher has told me that I can acquire knowledge more and faster than most people. I was also said that I was a good strategist. I decided by myself that I should travel around, ascertain knowledge, and help others who are in need instead of staying in one place and wasting my abilities.

"I really wanted to stand out from my family. I didn't want to be known as the one from a magic user family who can't even use magic. I felt left out; the one who wasn't well known. So, I talked it out with my family, and they let me go, they were a little worried about it at first, but they said that I had reasonable arguments. They knew how I felt, and they encouraged me to see how far I can get.

"… So then, that's most of my story. It's pretty selfish, isn't it?"

"The reason why you left in the first place was pretty selfish but what you wanted to do is not. Hey, it's a good thing that you were selfish because you achieved your goal, didn't you?"

Caden looked down and smiled. Matthew was right once again, she did achieve what she wanted to do. Now that she has done that, she was wondering if her family knew about it. Do they know about her accomplishments? She said that she wanted to be noticed, but she especially wanted to be noticed by her family.

"You're absolutely right, Matthew. I've made my decision. I'm going to Etruia to visit my family. I haven't been there in a long time. But… Lord Eliwood asked me to stay in Lycia until his inauguration; that's about ten months away. I don't want to wait that long until I go to Etruia."

"Huh? W-Wait… by the way that you were talking about them, I thought your parents were…"

"Were what?"

"Well, you were referring them with a past tense, so I assumed that you're parents were… um… already gone from this world."

Caden smiled and started to laugh. "No, no… they have plenty of years ahead of them before they actually die, trust me. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but they're too smart for bandits and other enemies, as I've indirectly mentioned."

"Heh, yeah, I see it now. Anyways, about you going to Etruia, you should ask Lord Eliwood or Lord Hector if you can go now. If you leave tomorrow, you can probably get there in a month."

Caden jumped up and looked at Matthew, "Great idea, I'm going to go and tell Lord Hector!"

She started to walk, but then she looked back at Matthew.

"I've only stayed in Ostia for about two days. It would be a little mean if I leave tomorrow."

"Don't worry. Lord Hector has Florina, and since you're only going to visit your family for a little while, when you come back, you can spend more time in Ostia."

"You're right. Alright, then, I'm going now, and you're coming with me to ask!"

She grabbed his hands and started dragging him so she and him can meet with Hector. Hector was in his room again, going over some paperwork and reading what the people wanted. Caden knocked on his door and Hector allowed her to come in. She asked him about her request once she walked into the room. He agreed about her going to Etruia.

"Sure, I'll relay the message to Eliwood; he'll understand why you're leaving for a while. But in order for someone to protect you… Matthew."

"Yes, Young Master?"

"Accompany Caden outside of Lycia and go with her to Etruia. Stay with her until she comes back here. Make sure she comes back here before ten months also. To make it easier on you, you don't have any missions or jobs if you accept this. That is alright with you, isn't it?"

"Yes milord, it's no problem."

They left the room and closed the door.

"I'm a little sorry, Matthew," Caden muttered.

"About what?"

"That you needed to be dragged into my affair. I know that I dragged you to come with me, but he really didn't have to ask you to come with me. Although it's pretty funny what kind of reasons he came up with."

"You need someone to protect you too. Who's better to accompany you than a thief?"

Caden chuckled, "Thank you, Matthew. I guess it's difficult for me to travel by myself for a long period of time now that I have traveled with a big army. Plus, traveling with a friend would be enjoyable than traveling alone, especially if the one you are traveling with is a thief."

"You got that right. A thief is real handy to have around," he said placing a hand on her shoulder.

She played it friendly and tried placing a hand on Matthew's shoulder too, but her head just reached Matthew's shoulders, so it looked a little weird as she placed her hand on his shoulder.

_"Grr… curse tall people. I guess looking at Lord Hector's garden is going to have to wait for a while. I was really thinking of observing the different flowers that he had here." _(1)

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End of Chapter 9: Let's go!

Caden's going to meet her family again? What will happen on their way there?

I feel a sense of dread since people might not like the rest of the story. I don't know. Maybe it's just me and my pessimistic side. Anyways, thank you for reading this chapter!

1) I really have no right to say that line, about cursing tall people, because I'm the tallest out of all my friends. And I'm about 5'6… which I think is pretty tall for an Asian, haha. Actually, Filipinos aren't really Asians, but are called "Pacific Islanders" but I know that a lot of Filipinos like to call themselves Asians. Sorry for rambling, I'll try to keep it to a minimum.


	10. Ready for the Worst

It's been four weeks! I'm sorry!

Hahaha! It seems that my rambling is contagious! That, or you just want to speak your mind. I always say that I'm going to keep my rambling to a minimum, but I always feel I have to put "this" in or "that" in. I guess it's just me. But if you feel like rambling, go ahead since I like to learn about people. I'm actually more of a listener than a talker, so that's probably why I can remember things my friends say and when I mention it, they look at me as if I were crazy, haha. Just to put this in: if you feel like talking to me –questions, comments, flames, or just general talk- you can e-mail me atsuki(place underscore here)meganeat yahoo or if you want to talk on AIM, my address is eyedonno25. Don't worry, I don't bite. Whether if it's just a hi or if you want to have a conversation, I'll be happy to talk to you. If you don't understand my yahoo e-mail address, just go to my infopage and click on my email. It's there too.

N E ways, on with the story!

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any **Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken** characters. They belong to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems.

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**Chapter 10: Ready for the Worst**

It was a good thing that she hadn't unpacked her bag. All she needed to do was grab it and go. But… maybe she'll stay for a couple of more hours… for Florina. After all, she's leaving her with Lord Hector. _"Boy, I hope Lady Lyn understands and doesn't kill me for leaving her here. Those two are getting along nicely though."_

"So, uh… Matthew, you're okay with going to Etruia with me?"

"Yeah, of course. Why? Are _you_ not comfortable with it? You think I might _do_ something?" he said with a sly look.

"N-No! I never thought of that! I know that you won't do anything like that!_ Or… is he?_ A-Anyways, I thought… that you might not want to leave Ostia right now or something."

"Nah, I'm fine with leaving. In fact, I can't wait. I just want to get away from Ostia for a while again. I know that it has only been a few weeks since we came back, but I miss traveling."

"Alright then. We'll leave tomorrow morning."

"Sounds good. I'll meet up with you at the front of the castle."

"Got it."

Caden closed her door when Matthew walked out.

_"Should we ride a horse? Nah… we'll just walk. If I remember, my brother is learning how to ride a horse. He might be really good at it. I'll learn from him. Oh, I should probably tell Florina."_

Caden first walked to the stables, she saw Huey, but no Florina. She walked up to the Pegasus.

"Hey Huey. Have you seen Florina?" she said stroking its head.

Huey was moving its nose to the opposite end of the stable to the path to the garden.

"She went that way the last time you saw her?"

Huey nodded its head.

"Alright, Huey. Thank you. Here's something for you."

She reached into her bag and grabbed an apple.

"There you go."

Huey bit into the apple and started eating its little snack. Caden walked into the garden and saw Florina talking to Serra, she's probably asking Serra more advice to be like her. She walked up to the two conversing.

"Oh! Hey there, Caden!" Serra said waving her hand. Florina looked behind her and waved her hand too.

"Hello Serra, Florina. Um… Florina, can I talk to you for a bit?"

"Okay."

Serra waited as Florina walked up to Caden.

"Um… I don't know if you heard about this but um… I'm leaving to go to Etruia tomorrow."

"You are? Who's going with you?"

"Matthew's going with me."

"Why don't I go with you?"

"I figured that you want more time with Lord Hector, right? When you want to go home, there are probably some soldiers who will escort you back to Caelin."

"Okay then. I wish you would have told me earlier though."

"It looked like you were having a good time with Lord Hector. I didn't want to ruin that for you," she said smiling. "You… are talking to him… right?"

Florina sheepishly looked the other way and blushed. "He's still done most of the talking, but I have been talking too."

"That's a nice improvement, Florina. Well then, if I don't see you tomorrow, I just wanted to say 'see you later' today."

"Okay then, see you later."

Florina hugged Caden and Caden walked back to her room. She flopped on her bed and rolled to her side.

It's her and Matthew going to Etruia… together. Of course she liked the idea of spending time with Matthew with no distractions but, … no, she can't think of that now. Matthew's friendly. He's only going along for comic relief, or… maybe their relationship will go from "friends" to "more than friends." She likes him more than just a friend, but she tried not to make that thought cloud her other thoughts along the way. Eh… time to go to sleep. She'll get to think as much as she wants to tomorrow morning… which came by rather quickly.

Caden woke up when the suns' rays shone on her though the windows. She lazily wiped away the drool on her face and wiped it on her pillow She sat up on her bed and stretched. After that, she lied forward on her bed and then lied with her head near the bottom part of the four post bed. _"I don't want to get up yet."_ Without looking, she went to reach for her boots on the side of the bed. She touched the lip of the boot, she tried to grab it, and so she moved closer to the edge of the bed. She grabbed one boot, but the other one was further, so she moved closer to the edge of the bed. When she grabbed her boot, she slid off the bed and fell on the ground. (1)

"… Ouch…" she said with her delayed reactions.

She slowly stood up as she was rubbing her elbow. She looked to the other bed, Florina was still sleeping. She tried not to make a racket, so she put on her boots, grabbed her drawstring bag, and left the bedroom. She flung her drawstring bag over her shoulder and walked to the entrance of the castle. There, Matthew was leaning on one of the pillars.  
"Do you ever sleep?"

"I tend to sleep for a couple of hours and stay awake the rest of the day."

"I… should learn that. It seems pretty useful. Can you become wide awake when someone attacks you at night?"

"Yeah. It's like a thief's sense."

"That's interesting. Shall we go now?"

"Yes, let's get going."

They walked for a few miles, and then Caden's feet started hurting a little.

"Do you want to hop on my back so you can rest?"

"I'm fine. We traveled longer than this before, I'm a little used to this pain. I can handle it."

"Alright then."

"… Hey Matthew, what do you think of Florina and Lord Hector being together?"

"Hm… this is something I'm not used to talking about but, I think opposites attract. Florina is very shy and fragile, and then Lord Hector is bold and speaks his mind."

"Yes, I get what you mean."

She wanted to ask him about how he thought of the other couples, but she thought that talking about that was more of a female thing. She tried to change the subject.

"So um… does Guy still owe you favors?"

"How did you know about that?"

"I was talking to Guy one day, and about why he joined our army. He told me how that whole contract came about."

"Well, he has a few favors. I just haven't thought of them yet."

"So, how long is this contract going to last, until he completes all of his favors for you?"

"Yes, that about sums it up."

"I… see… well. It's good that he's not your lap dog doing everything for you. Just… don't ask him to do anything drastic like, take over a castle or jump off a cliff."

"That would be a sight to see," Matthew chuckled.

Caden laughed too. She tried to imagine Guy taking over castle then manically laughing, and then she imagined him jumping off a cliff.

They talked once in a while along the way. When night came, they covered a lot of ground and saw that there was a town nearby. They stayed at the inn in the town. In order to save money, they rented one room with two beds. Caden tried to think that her sleeping in the same room with Matthew not bother her too much. Yes, she knew that nothing was going to happen, but she was kind of nervous sleeping under the same roof. Of course that happened many times while she was in Eliwood's army, but that was different since there were more people. Anyways, all her thinking made her sleepy, and she quickly dozed off.

----------

It was only a couple of hours when they left the town. Now, bandits attacked them. As Caden and Matthew took out their weapons, the bandits rushed towards them and swung their weapons. Caden and Matthew defended themselves. Surprisingly, when Caden and Matthew won, Matthew was looking at their attackers, he noticed something familiar.

"They're… the same bandits that we fought the day we met you guys," Matthew said.

"Geez, it was only five days ago that we helped the village from these bandits. Now, they're coming after us. This is crap," Caden said taking her sword from the ground.

She looked at the blade when she stood straight again. This was the sword that she had for a couple of weeks. It was getting dull; scratches and scrapes were seen all over the sword's blade with dents and chips. The sword's blade was slightly covered in blood, and the drops were sliding down the dull blade, showing where the scratches were by the liquid filling up the hole. It didn't look like the sword was going to break soon. In fact, she only used it a couple of times. She didn't think it was going to break for a while. She still had a long ways to go until the sword broke.

"Caden," Matthew said.

"Y-Yes?"

"We need to take care of the bodies here. We can't just leave them out like this."

"… Or can we? There are carnivorous birds around; they can take care of it."

"Caden, don't make any excuses if you don't like dead bodies. We need to bury them or else they'll start to rot and it'll make the sky smell horrid. Besides, the landscape doesn't look good with dead bodies everywhere."

"Heh, you're right. But I don't like dead bodies."

"No one does, but we need to bury them. You're really squeamish, Caden. Here, we'll just dig a big hole now and when we're done, I'll move all of the bodies in here."

"O-Okay. I can't help that I'm squeamish!"

"Haha, alright… but I figured that fighting for three years will get you over that, but I guess I was wrong. Now we need to find something we can use as a shovel."

They looked around and they decided to use the enemy's weapon as their's shovels because they couldn't find anything else around them.

It took them a while to bury the holes, but they got it finished hours later. Matthew dragged the bodies into the hole and when he finished that, they filled the hole with the dirt that they dug up. They continued walking until they found a stream nearby so that they can wash the blood off of their weapons and their bodies.

"I have a feeling that this ambush will not be the worst in this travel," Caden said as they wiped their hands.

"Why would you say that?"

"It's… it's just a hunch. Although I hate it, but most of my hunches are right."

"Well then, let's hope for the best that your hunch doesn't come true."

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**Author's Note:**

Sorry if this chapter seemed a little rushed. I know it does to me.

I'm sorry to say this, people, but I'm keeping this story on hold for now. It might be a couple of months until my next update. I have major writer's block and I've been doing other stuff that's been occupying me from continuing this story. I apologize profusely! I should have finished writing this story before I posted it up. I have the outline down, but I haven't written the details yet. I hope I didn't leave you on a major cliffhanger. This chapter is a beginning of a new arch, so just keep that in mind. So when I get that done, I'll continue.

1) Haha, I'll have to say, I sort of enjoyed writing this paragraph, I don't know why. Probably it's because I think of Caden being sophisticated and proper, but when I wrote it, I made her sound sloppy. I don't know, I like this paragraph.


	11. Premonition

Hey guys! I have been working on the story… I just haven't written down everything yet. I felt kind of bad not updating for… practically 4 months, so here's a new chapter until I finish writing my story. I don't want to lose my readers (T.T).

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**Chapter 11: Premonition**

_"This is bad. There's no way I'm going to win."_

She was starting to sweat from fighting too long. The tactician was panting real hard and could barely stand up. Yet, she was being persistent on winning and taking this victory from an unknown man in a black hood. He unexpectedly took the preemptive strike from behind, injuring Matthew who was protecting Caden from that attack. Now… now that it was almost at the end of the battle, things don't look so good for Caden and Matthew. Why… why would he go so far and try to kill us? What kind of grudge does he have for the two? Who is this man?

As she readied to attack again, she looked to her right to see if Mathew… wait… where's Matthew? Lowering her arms to get a wider range of sight, she saw the thief, on the ground, covered with blood. When she looked at his expression, he looked like it was unexpected, like it surprised him. When… how? Is he really…? Putting her worries aside, she looked at the obstacle before her. She readied her sword once again, and, with all the strength she had left, she swung her sword sideways. Yes! Direct hit! But… what? The sword went right through him! He doesn't even have a scratch on him! That doesn't make any sense; the other times when she attacked him, it hit him… didn't it?

That's it for her. She had no more energy to attack… or to stand up. Her legs gave out and the grip on her sword gave out as well. She could hardly keep her eyes open. The hooded man laughed, and raised his arms that held his sword. He swung down in front of Caden, and the next thing she saw was a grassy field in the light of day.

Caden woke up being slightly sweaty. She sat up with a dazed look in her eyes, trying to figure out what was real, and what was false.

"Are you alright, Caden?"

"It... it was a nightmare."

"It must have been on hell of a nightmare. You were tossing in your sleep for some time now."

"I see… Matthew…"

"Yes?"

"How long were you up to know that I've been tossing and turning for a while?"

"As I said before, I only sleep a couple of hours, so I've been up for quite a while now."

"Alright… let me get ready and we'll start moving again."

"Sure."

Caden stretched and got ready to travel again. She took out a snack for breakfast out of her bag and then flung the bag over her shoulder when she closed it. Every time she closed her eyes now, she could remember the nightmare so vividly, as if it were real. _"That nightmare that I had is very difficult to ignore… It seemed so real like this was… a premonition or something."_

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There it was; the borderline from Ostia to Etruia. Caden and Matthew were getting awfully close to it. It's just probably a few more miles until they reach it, and those miles were very tiring to walk. For two weeks, they went without stopping, with the exception of that ambush, but still, the only times when they stopped was when they went to eat their rations or when they went to sleep.

"Ah… finally another town," Caden said happily.

"We can get more food and supplies here until we reach the next town."

"Do you know when the next town is?"

"I'm not really sure."

"Since this town is still Ostian territory, have you been to this town before?"

"Probably once or twice. I kind of know my way around here."

They were stocking up on their rations and they bought a secondary weapon, just in case the used weapon that they had suddenly broke. After they did some more shopping and looked around, Caden suddenly felt a chill. She hugged herself so she can keep warm while they were walking down the busy streets.

"Hm? Something wrong?"

"I felt a chill, that's all."

"It's pretty warm here. There isn't any wind around. Are you sure you're alright?"

"Y-Yeah… I just think that something might go wrong… or something might happen…I just don't know."

"Maybe your hunch will actually come true."

"I would hope not, but I fear the same thing."

-----

"Hey, Dugan… d'ju feel that?"

"What?"

"There's someone here, someone we're looking for."

They both looked behind them, but they didn't know who they were looking for. They back tracked their steps until they finally saw her.

"Who is she, Robbin?"

"She doesn't look very noble, but she is one of the faces I remember Father showing me."

"Well then, let's get to it."

"Right, but all these people are in the way. We shouldn't hurt them."

"You're really soft, sis. Forget about the civilians, we need to get _them_."

"Dugan!" she yelled but whispering so no one else can hear. She grabbed him by either shoulder, "You can't be so damn careless!"

"Why shouldn't I? There's no reason caring for these people if they can't defend themselves!"

"I would seriously slap you right now if there weren't people around, Dugan! And I've taught you not to be the way you are right now."

"Fine! We'll wait until the girl and her companion are alone. Then, we'll move in."

-----

"Um… Can you wait here, Caden? I have something to do right now," Matthew asked.

"Why don't I go with you?"

"I have to go alone."

"Does it have to do anything with working? Because if I remember correctly, Lord Hector said you didn't have to work."

"Sorry, I can't tell you any details. Just trust me, okay?"

"Alright then," Caden said with a suspicious tone, "I'll wait for you at this entrance."

"Okay, it won't take long."

Caden leaned on the town's entrance arch. There was really nothing else to do there except wait for Matthew to come back. Hm, probably she can go to another store? No, that won't do. The town's pretty crowded; it would be difficult for even Matthew to spot her in all these busy streets. She wouldn't want him to scout her out. After all, they are kind of in a hurry. Perhaps she'll just wait here… under the arch. She's trained herself to be patient for anything, no matter how long someone takes; the only exception, though, is when it's an emergency.

"You know, you were kind of hard to find. Luckily for us, you were left alone like this."

Caden turned her head to see if that person was talking to her. She saw his face, but she thought that she's never seen that face before. She looked around her surroundings; no one else was around, so they must have been talking to her. Why would they though? She doesn't know who those two are.

"Err… can I help you?"

"There is nothing that you can do that can save you now," Dugan said as he was taking a Flux tome from underneath his robe.

"What are you talking about?" _He's a magic user? He's very young no less._"

"You will pay for what you did to my father, and you will pay it with your life."

"_Father?"_ She looked at the two closely. His appearance did seem a little familiar. That pale aqua green hair… and those horror-striking golden eyes… she's seen it before, and that expression… she now remembered. She couldn't forget that face… not after the hell she went though to get to him and what he's done to her and her friends.

"You're… Nergal is your father?"

He smirked and chuckled. She didn't need him to answer; she knew what he meant by the gestures.

"Yes, I am Dugan, an offspring of Nergal, and my sister, Robbin, as well. But there's no need for formalities."

Dugan chanted as he opened the Flux tome. Robbin did the same with her lightning tome. _"Dammit, my hunch was true. Looks like this fight isn't going to end well… for me at least."_ Caden took out her sword and readied herself for their attack.

Dugan was the first to strike. Caden looked down as she saw some dark matter form around the base of her feet. Before the matter took her, she hopped to the side and dodged the magic. Robbin then chanted a spell and lighting came to Caden's way. That hit her left shoulder and her robes ripped from the hit. The lightning stung real badly. She used her other hand to cover the wound. Caden went on the attack and she swung sideways to try to hit both of them, but because of her injury they both evaded her attack. _"I'm REALLY in a disadvantage here. My, Matthew had to leave at the right time, didn't he? Heh, just my luck."_

As the fight went on, Caden started losing. She was hit with magic more than she put a scratch onto Dugan or Robbin. She couldn't take anymore hits. As one more flux magic hit her, she fell to the ground. She looked up to them as they were walking closer to her.

"And now, your end has come." Dugan raised his hand and chanted another flux magic.

When Matthew was coming back to meet with Caden, he didn't expect what he saw. Dugan was right in front of Caden, who was down on the ground.

"Caden!" he yelled. Dugan and Robbin looked at Matthew. He stopped what he was doing and swung his hand down in frustration.

"You're lucky this time. Let's go Robbin."

"Dugan, wh-"

"Don't question me. Let's go now!"

Dugan and Robbin took a step back and teleported away from them. Matthew ran up to Caden and he raised her upper body so he can see her. Her body was covered with lightning and flux wounds. She wasn't bleeding, but the scars that the lightning left behind was not a pretty sight since the blood there looked like it solidified.

"Heh… for a kid that age, he sure knows a lot about magic… Like father like son I guess," Caden said trying to keep her eyes open looking at Matthew.

"Huh? What do you mean by that? Caden! Keep your eyes open!"

It didn't work well though, she closed her eyes when she felt too weak to leave them open. Matthew looked at her wounds… it was nothing to serious that she could die; only enough for her to be unconscious. There was nothing else for him to do except to keep on moving; that was the only option for that matter since those two attackers left. Matthew looked in his bag for a vulnerary or an elixir somewhere. When he found one, he opened it and looked at Caden.

"I know that you're not unconscious yet, Caden. _Or at least I hope you're not unconscious._ But drink this before we start moving again."

Matthew positioned her so he can pour the elixir's content in her mouth. He put the lip of the elixir's container near her lips, and poured it slowly so that she wouldn't choke. After that, he closed the bottle and put it back in his bag. He didn't expect Caden to wake up suddenly… or for a couple of more days, so he decided to carry her until she regained consciousness.

----------

End of Chapter 11: Premonition

**Author's Note:**

Here you go! Please be patient until I get my story updated on a regular basis again.

I usually get the inspiration to write it again when I just forget about something for a long period of time. Hopefully, this long period won't take too long. I have less than half of my story finished, but I hope to get that percentage up soon.


	12. Recover

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think another 4 weeks have elapsed since my last update. Sorry guys, I wanted to get this story finished and written before I lost my full interest in this, but that hasn't worked at all for me.

There are some school things that have been occupying me at the moment, like projects, and reading books, and studying (which I need to get accustomed to this year because I never really had to study for classes before because of my good memory. And me having a slight case of senioritis.)

Someone (who will be remained anonymus unless they would like me to announce his/her username) requested another Fire Emblem fic. I am currently working on that one and concurrently working on this one. (getting ideas from time to time.)

And then there are other things that have been occupying me at the moment. Like Final Fantasy XII coming out and me playing it every free time I get XD. And my brother hogging my PS2 for him playing Guitar Hero. (I observe him playing since he's in my room. I play once in a while, but my brother has surpassed me a while ago.) Me having a comic idea in my head (Because of my friends, I am now interested in Shounen-ai, and the comic I'm thinking of is a shounen-ai as I hate to admit it. Sorry if you have to read this people who dislike shounen-ai.) Me just drawing a picture because I have something in my head. And then there's me just watching TV and doing my daily stuff on the internet. And the last but maybe the most important, me procrastinating..

----------

**Chapter 12: Recover**

Caden was unconscious. Even when she was traveling with Lord Eliwood and the others, she wasn't knocked out as much as she is now; but this time, the enemies were going after her too. But since they were going after her for revenge because of Nergal, that would mean that those two would go after the lords too. _"I need help. And no ones around… I think. Where is everybody?"_

Caden decided to open her eyes when she had the strength to. Regaining her strength already? She must have been sleeping for a couple of days… or even weeks. Weeks?! That means that Nergal's son must have made his way in Lycia already trying to get to the three Lords! This isn't good! With that thought, she quickly opened her eyes and sat up, which she regretted right about when she did it. She felt a searing pain all over, especially around her lower body. She felt like she was it with an Elfire magic many times.

"Ow," she groaned. When she had the time to look around, she saw that she wasn't outside. She woke up in a small house, on a bed, and it this house didn't look one bit familiar.

_"Huh? Where am I? Are we in Etruia or Lycia?"_ On that note of observing, she looked at her arms, and she saw that her arms were bandaged, and she felt part of her face bandaged too. _"What happened to me? Last thing I remember… oh yes… Dugan… and Robbin…"_

She heard a door open, so her eyes followed the sound. She saw a little kid walk by, along with Matthew right behind him.

"Caden!" Matthew said, "You're alright!"

"Heh, not right now I'm not," she said with a weak smile, "I just sat up, and I'm sore all over."

She averted her eyes from Matthew to the kid. She looked at him as if he was familiar. A memory clicked in her mind as she looked at his wrist and saw the bracelet she gave to someone.

"Hey, you're that kid I helped a few weeks ago in Caelin."

"Really? No wonder this kid helped you. I was carrying you around, and then he passed by. He looked at you, and tugged me to follow him. Then he took me here, to his home."

She looked around the room she was in again, and looked at the kid.

"Do you live here by yourself?"

The boy nodded.

"What's your name?"

He stared at her and then looked depressed and looked down. She looked up at Matthew.

"I found out that he is a mute, so I don't know his name yet."

"Oh, I see. Well, thankfully for me, I know that language that I can use for him. Since you can't talk, can you sign?" Caden asked signing the last sentence. (1)

The kid looked surprised, but in a good way. He started signing back to her, he seemed really happy that he could talk…sign to someone.

"'Yes! …I'm happy you can understand me and these hand signs… I've been…' …? H-Hold on, sorry. I can understand your signs; I just can't catch up with what you're signing since you're signing a little too fast than what I can process. Can you go a little slower?"

Matthew was looking at the two signers. There was another thing that surprised Matthew, another thing that he, or anyone else knew about her. He felt a little out of place, but Caden was generous enough to translate it for him.

"'I remembered you as this man passed by… I saw the necklace I gave you, and I remembered what you did for me. He asked me for my name, and I showed him that I couldn't talk.' I see. So what is your name anyway?"

The boy lifted up his hand again and started spelling out letters.

"K… A… I. His name is Kai. Oh? 'I can hear you just fine. You don't have to sign back to me.' Haha, sorry, I just wanted to do it. You don't mind, do you?... 'No, I don't mind. I'm just happy that someone understands me. The last time I talked to someone was three years ago.' Three years? Wow, you learned hand signs in three years? How did you do it? 'We had a book of hand signs. The place where my family lived had a few deaf people, so part of my family learned hand signs to communicate with them.' I see. Where's your family?"

Kai looked down again. He signed another sentence.

"Caden, what did he say?"

"… He said… All of his family members died… by him. What happened? When did this happen? Was something wrong?... 'This happened years ago. I felt like I was being used by another person. It felt like someone was controlling me. I used magic on my own family. After I killed them, this person silenced me so I would never speak of what he did to me, or use magic again.' Do you remember who did this to you?"

He was thinking and then he spelled out something. "N… E…" Kai went on as they were observing. He signed the last couple of letters, and Caden gasped, Matthew was curious.

"… Nergal… Nergal did this to him."

"What? Nergal? But we killed him months ago. I know I don't know that much about magic, but if they're dead, the caster's curses won't work anymore, right?"

"Well, that is true. Huh? … 'The curse HAS been lifted. I was able to talk again, but I don't talk now since I don't have anyone to talk to. My family is gone, and I had no other friends than them. I've been alone for years, but I've managed to survive and stay sane this whole time. After I met you, I became stronger and I taught myself how to fight.' That's good. But, we're here, why aren't you talking?" He stayed quiet, and looked at Caden with disappointed eyes. "'I have my reasons.' Well… okay. Um… about teaching yourself how to fight, that's pretty good! Have you used it on anybody? 'Once or twice.'"

Now as Caden was realizing it, she did see that he looked a bit different since she last saw him.

"Kind of like you, Caden; self taught and independent."

Caden looked at Matthew and smiled. Kai tapped on the tactician's shoulder to get her attention. She looked at him and Kai signed something.

"Oh… sure, alright then. Be safe, it's almost dark."

He snapped his finger and looked upset. He signed something else and Caden said, "Okay then, I get it. Just be safe; that is all I ask. … Yes, yes, I know."

Kai was walking down and Caden looked at Matthew, "He said that he's going to the nearby town to get some food and supplies."

Kai popped up beside Matthew and started signing again.

"Sure, we'd be more than happy to. We've been traveling a lot, so it's a good time today."

He nodded and made his way out of the door.

"He asked me if we could stay for another night. He said that he hasn't had anybody over in a while and he likes the company. Kai doesn't want us to leave so soon."

"Well, that's nice of him."

"Yes… he's very nice."

"But I was wondering, where did you meet him again and what happened?"

"I met him in Caelin, at a town. He stole something, but then I paid it off for him. He thanked me with this necklace, and I gave him gold and that bracelet he was wearing. By the way, where are we?"

"We're about an hour away from the borderline of Ostia and Etruia. So now that we're here, how much further are we until we get to your place?"

"About a week if we keep on moving. I haven't been there in five years, but I still remember where it is."

Caden lied back down trying to get that pain when she sat up too fast to subside. _"Now that I think of it, Caelin is on the other side of Lycia. How did he…? Why was he…? Eh… I'll think of that later."_

"It seems that… even though he's not here anymore, Nergal's spirit still runs around… during our travels, the enemies we face, and in our memories. I wonder why? Um… does… does Kai look familiar to you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean… that he looks like someone we know."

"You're probably confusing yourself with the first time you met him."

"No, that's not it. It feels like he's someone we've known for a long time. He's at the tip of my tongue… I just can't put my finger on it. Damn, this is going to frustrate me for a while, like everything else. There are a lot of things that are frustrating me now! Damn, why is that?"

"Don't think too hard, Caden. You just regained consciousness a moment ago. I don't want you to become unconscious again because of frustration," he said sitting at the edge of the bed beside Caden.

"Heh… actually, losing consciousness seems like a good idea since I always have so much on my mind."

"You can't joke around like that now since what happened. I was worried about you."

She looked at Matthew, "… Worried?"

"Yes! You were unconscious for a couple of days already. The moment you passed out, I gave you an elixir, but after that you didn't wake up. On that subject… you said something that didn't make sense to me."

"Err… what did I say?"

"'Like father like son' or something like that."

"Ah, yes… about that. Before they attacked me, they revealed themselves to be Nergal's children."

Matthew looked slightly confused. "… Say that again? I think my ears have deceived me."

"I'm not joking. Dugan said that he was the son of Nergal, and Robbin was Nergal's daughter, too."

"That's… are you sure?"

"I couldn't believe it myself too, but I studied Dugan and Robbin's appearance closely, and they both did somewhat look like Nergal. What's more of a mystery to me is how old they are… and who their mother is."

"I was thinking the same thing."

"Yes, and if you remember Lord Athos's story, he's more than 500 years old! I wonder how old Nergal was when he had those kids." (2)

"I agree…"

When the pain in Caden's lower body went away, she slowly sat up.

"Caden, you should get some rest."

"I've already had enough time to rest. I want to get up."

"It's too early for you. You had burns and magic residue on you. They don't look like they'll be disappearing for a while."

"I can see that I'm bandaged up, but as you've said, I've been lying down here for a couple of days. I feel like stretching, or standing up… I just want to do something instead of lying down," she complained.

Matthew sighed. "Alright then, I'll help you around."

----------

"I still don't get why you spared the woman when you said you were going to kill her at that time," Dugan's sister said as they were walking.

"All in due time. You'll find out later about my plan, but right now, I'm going to get more information about this woman."

"And how will you do that?"

"When I said that I had my own 'group,' I didn't say that they would be traveling with me. They're scattered around Elibe just in case I need to get information about them. I had a friend stationed in Caelin, and you know him too, Robbin."

They walked near the Caelin castle, but not going up the hill that it was on. Instead, they stationed themselves in the forest filled area so that they can have a space for privacy. They knew that they weren't going to get any closer, so they used their magic to bring out whom Dugan needed. A young trainee appeared in front of them, he looked to see what was going on, and then he saw the two familiar faces.

"Ah, Dugan… how nice to see you again. And Robbin, it's a pleasure to see you again as well."

"Cut the crap, Bayle. There's something I need to ask you."

"What is it?"

"There are these people who we are trying to look for. We've passed this one woman with reddish-brown hair with a robe that looked like she was a traveler. Have you met her before?"

Bayle looked the other way with a disgusted face. "… Her name is Caden. She was the tactician for Lady Lyndis's army when they went to destroy your father."

"Caden… so that's the brown haired one. And Lyndis… she must be the one with the long green hair. Were there other nobles on the journey?" Robbin asked.

"I'm surprised you haven't heard of this army. They were traveling around in Lycia, Bern, and in Sacae. Caden especially is famous for her tactics for keeping everyone alive while they were fighting. You must've been sleeping under a rock if you didn't know that."

"Stop it with your quick remarks and answer the damn question," Dugan snapped.

"Looks like you haven't changed one bit, Dugan. Yes, there were two other nobles: Lord Eliwood of Pherae and Lord Hector of Ostia."

"Now that I think of it, you sounded like you have a grudge against Caden. I noticed how you mentioned her name," Robbin said.

"That bitch won a spar against me and her. I even took the initiative."

"It's not like you to be beaten by someone else other than us."

"I was hiding my true power against her. Even if I didn't show her my true strength, I still don't like losing."

"That's just like you, Bayle. It looks like you haven't changed at all, too."

"Yeah, if you want to take out me pretending to be 'sworn to protecting Caelin at all costs.'"

"I didn't tell you to become one of Caelin's ranks. You did that to yourself."  
"It's a good cover-up, I think. They would not expect me to be against them. So, Dugan, why did you call me out here? I know it's more than me giving you information."

"This might grab your attention. How would you like to have another go at Caden?"

"You serious?"

"Yes. We passed by her a few days ago. She seemed like she was going to Etruia. If we find her, and anyone related to her, we can destroy her and that would be the end of her tactician career."

"Why not go for the nobles first?"

"You idiot. If we kill the nobles, it would be controversial. As you said, Caden is popular, but she's not a noble. If she dies, it won't have as much as an impact as if we killed Lyndis."

"That makes sense. This might prove useful then too: I overheard my 'trainers' talking about Caden going to Etruia to meet her family."

"My, that is very useful."

"And when we were fighting, she was surprised when she heard my name. It turns out that she used to love someone named Bayle. If I remember, your father knew how to bring people back to life and under his control. Maybe reviving the Bayle she knew and loved will weaken her when she sees him."

"That's a great idea… but we'll wait until the time comes for that. Right now, let's get this tactician. I have a plan."

----------

End of Chapter 12: Recover

**Author's Note:  
**

Ah, screw putting this story on hold. I'll probably just update when I get a chapter typed up now. They might be coming at month's intervals though if you guys don't mind. Whelp… that settles that for now.

1) Here's one thing I actually know! I'm taking a sign language class and I'm learning how to sign. I'm on my third year.

2) I don't remember the exact story that Athos told, because I forgot how long ago it was when Athos and Nergal were friends.


	13. It's Great to be Home

Hey guys! I've been distracted with drawing for the past few weeks. I dunno when I'm gonna get this story done. Here's the new chapter!

**----------**

**Chapter 13: It's Great to Be Home**

"Hey Kai, how is it that… I saw you in Caelin, but you're all the way in Ostia? That's across the whole Lycian nation.

'The home that I was born in was being run down now that I was the only person left. It was about the same week when I met you that they told me to move out of the house and go live somewhere else. So I did. My family lived in Bern. I didn't want to stay there because of bad memories. So I went to Lycia to find a home. I moved around a lot. I didn't have any money, so that's why you saw me steal the elixir. And then I overheard from someone that Ostia has the biggest land in Lycia. When I found out that Ostia is the furthest from Bern, I wanted to go there.' I see. My, that was a very long journey for you, wasn't it? Well, on your way here, didn't you get attacked by bandits since you were alone?

'There was this time when some bandits came up to me, but then there was this archer that helped me out.' Oh really? Where is he now? '… He died when we were fighting some magic users who were bullying us.'"

An archer… dying… magic wounds all over his body. Caden knew that this sounded familiar, but she couldn't believe it. Just to make sure, she decided to ask, "Kai, how long were you traveling with this archer? 'For probably about two weeks. He didn't get far though.'"

Matthew looked at Caden worriedly. She had a nervous look in her eyes as if she just realized something… something that wasn't happy.

"Caden, what's the matter?"

"On my way to Ostia, Florina and I passed a dead archer while we were in the air. If I'm correct, the archer that we passed was the one that Kai is mentioning right now."

"Really? What a coincidence."

"Yes, what's _more_ of a coincidence though, is that the archer looked familiar to me. But I don't know why. Where was the archer going? '… He said he was traveling back to his home in Etruia.'"

"Things are really starting to make sense… and it's getting weird. Do you remember what the archer's name was?"

Kai thought for a moment then fingerspelled a name.

"Alair… his name was Alair. Heh… small world," Caden said as if she was sad.

"So, was Alair someone you knew?"

"Alair was my neighbor in my town in Etruia. He was one of my closest friends. It shames me that I couldn't remember him the first time I saw him. Now… he's gone."

Caden felt like crying, but she tried to hide it. Only a few tears rolled down her face, which she wiped off, and the rest she held back.

"There's no time for me to mourn for a departed friend now. That can wait until later. I'm sorry Kai, but Matthew and I need to get going. Thank you for your hospitality for the past few days. 'It's no problem… I hope your travel is well.'"

She signed "thank you" with the hand signs and the tactician and thief left.

_"I hope for the best for Kai. I wish we can see him again."_

Finally, the time came to take their first steps onto the Etruian land. They have reached the border, and crossed it with anticipation. Now, as Caden said it, there is about one more week to go until they reach her town.

_"Maybe I should've asked Kai to come with us. He seems a little lonely. But, he was doing fine even before we met him. I guess it's alright. Kai's stronger than he looks. Damn… I've been thinking about Kai too much. Maybe it's because he's alone."_

One week of traveling went fast for them. It was easily sailing from where they met Kai to the middle of Etruia. They see the village where Caden grew up, Keinkurt. The two were awfully close to her town; it was right in front of them. Caden took one more step…(1)

"Hold it!" yelled a voice.

They looked around trying to find out where the voice came from.

"Take one more step and I'll attack you!"

"I live here. This is my home-" she said stepping forward.

An Elfire magic shot towards Caden, and she quickly evaded as she pulled her sword from its sheath. Matthew took out his dagger.

"I will warn you one more time. Leave, or else I will attack you."

"Are you listening to me?! This is where I live!" she said taking another step.

Another Elfire, and it hit Caden's robe. Another one came out and she jumped out of the way. Matthew made his move and followed where the Elfire came from; behind the bushes and the trees. There, he found the source of the magic! Matthew jumped behind and held the dagger to the attacker's neck. The attacker was young, and he had short, brown hair and the Elfire tome was tucked under this robe.

"You have some nerve not paying attention, kid. Caden, over here!"

"C-Caden?"

She appeared a while later and she stared at her attacker.

"I-It's you! … Greg?"

"C-Ca… Sis?"

_"'Sis?'"_ Matthew let go of Caden's so-called brother and he stood up as Caden and Greg walked up to each other. Caden was kind of height deprived just standing next to Matthew, but she felt even shorter just standing in front of that younger brother who was once a head shorter than her. It was kind of unusual now looking slightly up just to look at her brother's face. Caden smiled and chuckled.

"Puberty hit you, huh?"

"What a nice way to put it!" he replied sarcastically with a fake smile on his face.

"Well, you're an adult now! Last time I saw you was when you just became a teenager. I didn't even recognize your voice! I get to see my little brother all grown up!" she said as she went up to him and hugging him as hard as she can.

"Eh! Sis! Sis! You're gonna kill me just when we get to see each other again!"

"I can't help it! You've become so handsome!" she said squeezing him even harder.

Greg made some choking sounds and tried to pull away from his sister. After Greg struggling for a while, she let go of Greg and smiled at him again.

"Oh yes, this is Matthew, my friend, and Matthew, this is Gregory, Greg for short, he's my brother that I told you about."

They shook hands and Caden asked, "Hey, Greg, why did you attack me?"

"Well… err… Father taught me some tricks where we can detect people-"

"I already know about that, but it looks like you're protecting the village more than five years ago."

"Oh… yeah…" Greg said scratching the back of his head, "About that, well… h-hold on, you have to visit Mother and Father first before I tell you anything more. Come on, Sis! Come on, Matthew, come and meet our parents."

Greg led the way to the house as Caden took Matthew's hand and walked with him. _"Whoa… I grabbed his hand! Why did I do that? Uh… hopefully he won't think of anything by it."_

_"… She grabbed my hand. Did she do it unconsciously or did she really mean to grab it?"_ (2)

As they were walking by, some of the village folk were staring at them. Caden of course knew most of the villagers, but there were some young unfamiliar faces. My, she really has been gone a long time.

"Hey, isn't that Allard's daughter? My, she's grown!"

"Has it really been five years since she left? Wow, those five years have been good to her."

They reached the house that was the furthest from the entrance, the two-story building that Caden and Gregory call home. They walked through the front door of the house, making their way to the foyer, closing the door after they walked in.

"Father! Mother! I'm home! I've brought someone back, too!"

Her father and mother popped their heads from the rooms that they were in. They were surprised who they saw at the front door.

"Caden!" they both exclaimed.

They ran over to her and her mother embraced Caden, and then her father did so too.

"How have you been doing, Caden? Have you been eating well?"

"Yes, Mother. I've been healthy all this time."

"You look stronger, too."

"You should have seen her, Father! She knows how to use a sword now since she was so bad at using magic!"

"Greg! … Actually… you're right. O-Oh… Mother, Father, this is Matthew, one of the friends I made when I traveled to Lycia. Matthew, this is my mother, Teena, and my father, Allard."

"One of your friends? You have more?"

"Well… yes, actually, a lot more. Y-You see… I was a tactician for an army for about a year and a half."

"Oh, I've heard about that army. You were the tactician?"

She nodded, and Allard laughed.

"Now I see that you have gone further than I thought you would go! I would have never known that you were that tactician!"

"Father, that sounded mean. You know, one of the reasons why I came here was to see if you knew about what I had accomplished. Hey, how did news of my army reach this village in the first place?"

"The other villagers. Word has spread that Lord Pent left the castle again with his wife. After that, we heard that he was traveling with three lords from Lycia, and they had a very fine tactician with them."

"But… Lord Pent had left Etruia way before I met him."

"Yes, but news about Lord Pent spread around quickly in these areas of Etruia."

"I see. So that's how you knew. So… they said that there was a very fine tactician?"

"Yes. They said that the tactician has been with the three lords since the beginning, and the tactician was famous for keeping everyone alive in every battle."

"From what we heard, you've really improved greatly compared to when you first left," Teena said, "It seems that not only did you improve your skills, you've gotten very beautiful too, my daughter."

Caden smiled, "Thank you, Mother."

"So then, does that mean that Matthew here was taking commands from you for a year and a half?"

"Yes, I have been. She's made some very good strategies for most of our battles," he said looking at Caden and smiling at her. She looked at him and smiled back.

"That sounds great. So Matthew, what did you do on the battlefield?" Greg asked.

"I… err… I'm very dexterous. I can open doors and pick chests."

"Hm… it sounds like a thief's work," he said observing Matthew have a calculating look on his face.

"Greg, not all thieves are bad. This one here is actually very cheerful and funny. He wouldn't steal something from just a commoner unless it's absolutely necessary. Matthew is a very nice thief."

"… Do you like him?" Allard asked suspiciously.

Caden froze for a second and felt her face heat up. "Wh-What makes you say that?"

Teena smirked and chuckled. Her father went on. "You seem to talk very positive about him. And by the way that you looked at him, you look cheerful when he smiled back at you."

"So then, Sis, is Father right?"

There was a silence for a couple seconds, and then someone yelled out, "Dame Teena, General Allard!"

Allard sighed, "Come on Greg, Teena. Caden, you and your friend stay in here. You both are visitors after all."

"But Father, they only asked for you and Mother. It's only a village meeting, isn't it?"

"It might be, but come with us anyways. They might need you."

"Sigh… alright."

The three left the house and closed the door. Caden went to the window to see what was happening. Then, she felt Matthew's hand on her shoulder and she turned to look at him.

"So, is there anything you want to talk about?" he asked having a smirk on his face.

"_He must be referring to THAT._ Um… can we talk about that later? My father kind of brought that up in an awkward time, if you don't mind," she said with a nervous look on her face.

"I understand. Very well then."

Caden sat down on the couch and placed her hands on her knees. Matthew sat next to her.

"So, how do you like the village so far?"

"Hm, by the way your brother attacked us, there are some skilled people here. It seems like a nice and quiet village."

Caden chuckled, "Oh? Well you haven't been here long enough to know that 'quiet' isn't on of the adjectives describing this village."

"I see. Maybe later I'll get to see that non-quiet side then."

"Usually Keinkurt is active when night comes. It's nice that way, especially since all the people here know each other. Because of that, we have a lot of festivals and village parties."

Caden stretched and lied down on the extra space that she had on her side of the couch lying towards Matthew. "I've forgotten how comfortable this couch was."

"It _has_ been a while since we've actually slept properly."

As Caden yawned, she stretched, and she placed her arms along Matthew's legs. It was her habit of doing that when she was lying down. She usually did that to people who she knew well, so she hoped that Matthew didn't mind. She heard the door open, and Greg came through the threshold. Caden looked up, without moving from her lying down position. Greg looked at them with a suspicious look, almost like a suspicious glaring in his eyes.

"Well, what were you two doing here? Were you guys doing what I thought you were doing?" he said with a sly tone.

"Shut up, Greg! We weren't doing anything!"

"Yeah, _sure_ you weren't," Greg sarcastically replied as he closed the door behind him.

"So, where's Mother and Father?" she asked standing up from the couch.

"It's as I thought. They're at a village meeting."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot. What's with the tighter security around the village?"

"Well, recently there have been a number of bandits and raiders seen around this area of Etruia; about three times now this village has been attacked. So in order to keep the peace in our village, and keep our valuables safe, we had to 'up' the security."

"I see. Well, how long has this been going on? And… do you think the bandits and raiders that are coming by know about the village treasure that's stored here?"

"I doubt that those low lives know about the treasure. Besides, we have it safely hidden. Only the village magistrate and our family know where it is."

"I see. Well, it doesn't look like much has changed in five years, but I might be wrong because I just walked straight here."

"And you would be right. Maybe later you can go ahead and look around."

"I will do that later. I haven't had a good night's sleep in a while, and it's been a long time since I've slept in a comfortable space. Let me take my nap," she said to her brother.

"Well, if you feel like doing that, why don't you go to your room? It's been untouched this whole time, besides the fact that mother went in there many times cleaning."

"Oh really? Well that's nice to know. Wait… Matthew, what are you going to do when I'm taking a nap?"

"He can come with me. All I'm doing is running errands for some of the villagers. He'll get to see the rest of the village."

"That's a good idea. Are you alright with that Matthew? I feel like I'm treating you like a rag doll."

"No, I'm fine with that. I don't mind going with your brother. It would give me something to do."

"Okay, see you later then."

Gregory and Matthew left the house and Caden made her way to her room which was at the end of the hallway of the second floor. She felt nostalgic walking down the hallway, probably because it's been five years since the last time she's done that. She reached the door to her room, and she placed her hand on the door knob. She opened the door, and she saw that, as Gregory said, her room was untouched. It was still a light blue color with a hint of green. Her bed was still in the same place, and the pile of books and notebooks that were on her desk were just as she left it. She smiled warmly because of the fact that she hasn't seen her own room in a while. She walked across her carpet, brushing her fingers across the dresser that was near the door. She made it to her bed, and sat on the edge of it. It was still comfortable, and the groove of her sleeping on the mattress was still there. She took off her boots and settled in the groove of her mattress. She instantly fell asleep afterwards.

----------

End of Chapter 13: It's Great to be Home

**Author's Note:**

See? This time I didn't end this with a cliff hanger, haha. I dunno. I'm thinking that some of this material that I wrote down is kinda corny. Maybe that's just me though.

1) If you don't know how to pronounce the village's name, it's _kayn'-kurt_. I made it up.

2) This whole thinking thing of "she grabbed my hand!" thing came from one of my friend's fanfics. It was pretty funny when I read it, so I decided to do something like that in mines.


	14. Five Year Difference

Whew, I almost thought that I couldn't update this Monday because I thought I had misplaced my flash drive (thank goodness I didn't)! That would've been real bad because I have all the work I've written so far in that tiny little thing (I write in advance and then re-write anything that needs to be changed before I update).

I've taken a step into this story being into a slight original Fic since this is in a village that I made up, and inside are people who I made up as well. I hope people don't mind. Fire Emblem _is_ a big world to tread upon to make your own stuff.

Whelp, here's the next chapter!

**----------**

**Chapter 14: Five Year Difference**

The tactician awoke from her well comforting nap, slowly opening her eyes. She looked around in her field of view, _"Wait, where am I again? Oh yeah, I'm back home... back in Keinkurt."_ Caden sat up and stretched as she felt her body stiff from sleeping. She looked out her window that was near the foot of her bed. By the looks of how the sunrays were shining against the window sill, she estimated that it was… morning? That didn't make any sense to her. She remembered that the sun was at its highest point when she arrived in Keinkurt. The other option that came in her head was… that she has been asleep for almost a whole day. (1)

She suddenly sat up and double checked to see if it was actually morning. Her eyes weren't deceiving her, it _was_ morning. She opened the door quietly and made her way downstairs. Before she reached the last step, she held onto the rail to see what was happening on the floor. In front of her, in the living room, she saw Matthew asleep on the couch. It was the perfect time for her to see this, on the count of that Matthew was always awake before her. She smiled, finally being able to see this, and then she took one last step to reach the first floor.

She sat on the chair that was across the room from where Matthew was sleeping. By the looks of how Matthew was sleeping, with just a blanket on, he instantly fell asleep, just how Caden did. Have they really been traveling for that long of a time to fall right asleep when they're comfortable? She figured that she didn't want to wake him. He needed his rest… or… maybe she didn't want to wake him up because of the fact that she liked seeing a sleeping Matthew.

As she was looking around, she stood up and went into the kitchen. Before she stepped into the room, she heard another door open from the second floor. Hearing the door open, she looked over at Matthew, and because Matthew's a light sleeper, he opened his eyes. She looked back at the stairs, it was her brother. He rubbed his eyes while looking at Caden.

"Err… Morning?" Caden said.

"Why the hell are you saying it like that?" Gregory asked in his waking tone.

"Well… I think I was asleep for almost a day. I'm not sure if it's morning or not."

"Sure is. Once we got back home, I looked into your room, and saw that you were still sleeping. I wanted to wake you up, but then I thought that you've been traveling for a while since Matthew said you came all the way from Ostia, and you needed your rest. Tough luck for me though, I wanted to wake you up the way I always did when you were like that. Oh, morning, Matthew."

"Well, that would be rude of you!"

"But don't you miss those days?" he said a little childly.

"I can't deny… but, yeah, I sort of do."

"Great… prepare for a rude awakening tomorrow morning."

"Eh, damn you, Greg."

"I love you, too. Haha."

Greg has a different personality when he just wakes up. His usual playful personality is slightly subtle until he fully wakes up. Like his reply for Caden, he would never say that during the afternoon… unless he actually meant it. There are times when he seems dead in the morning, where he wouldn't function at all until a while after. Caden was a little envious of that he would have a slightly different personality like that. (2)

The tactician looked over at Matthew. He was sitting up and stretching.

"So um… how long was it that I was actually asleep? And when did you two go to bed?"

"You've been asleep for as long as you said you were. As for me and Matt, we got home a couple of hours after we finished the errands I had to run. That's when I found out that Mom and Dad needed to do a quick mission out of the village for a couple of days. And um… for your second question, me and Matt hung out in the village until nightfall, and when we got home, we talked a little, then went to sleep."

"I see. _I want to know what they talked about. But I guess that would be a little impossible for me to do that since… they are males._"

As much as she understands that Gregory likes to abbreviate names, she is somewhat annoyed that how (in a sense) lazy he was to say their full names. If the name was more than one syllable, he would make up a one syllable nickname for them. (3)

"Well, I've been in bed for more than I needed to, and now I want to check out what's been happening. Matthew, I know that you have already seen the village, but would you like to accompany me?"

"Actually, I need to run some… err… errands around Etruia."

"But… why do you need to do that? Lord Hecter said… H-Hey, Matthew! Matth-!"

Before he could answer her question, he disappeared like he does when he's sneaking around in Ostia. _"Geez… always going around by himself. I can't blame him though. He is still under oath of Castle Ostia. But running errand around Etruia? He's working for Lycia's nation though. Huh, this won't make much sense to me. I heard Lord Hector saying to him that he doesn't have to do anything, but I guess since it is Matthew, he feels like he does. Well… maybe he really did get some secret missions from him or something. Matthew can't say anything to me about those, that's why he has to make excuses!" _After Caden was going through her thoughts and pointing out some of the obvious, she became suspicious of him. She put those thoughts of Matthew aside and focused on Keinkurt. "I guess… I'll go around myself. It would be nice on the count of meeting old friends and such."

She walked out of the house after she got ready to go outside. Walking down the village was like walking down memory lane for her. Even though she's been gone for five years, it felt like she's been gone longer than that. Caden continued her walk, looking to see if anything has changed. She looked at the house right next to theirs, and then she remembered something. Her flashback looked like she was about nine or ten at the time, and she knocked on the door next to her house. A boy about the same age opened the door, and they started playing after he came out. The young boy was Alair, her closest friend she had in the village.

They ran out of Keinkurt not too far away, and started to play around with their training weapons. The boy that she was playing with had a training bow and arrow, and Caden had a book of fire with her. She hardly used the tome in her hand, although she mumbled some chants to herself to see if they would actually work, which, not to her surprise, didn't work at all, although she would get surprised and happy if some sort of fire came from her chants. The other boy, though, had blunt arrows with a bow that was small for him to be comfortable with using because of his size. Caden had two weapons up her sleeve because of the fact that everyone in the village knew that he was "magic conjuring deprived".

When they were in class, the teacher sorted them into what type of magic the children were comfortable at using. Therefore, that sorted them into the type that they would be exceptional at. Caden was asked what type of magic that she was comfortable using, and when she replied that she couldn't excel in either anima or light, her classmates made fun of her when they found that out. Caden was actually sort of a cry baby when she was made fun of, so when that happened to her, she wanted to run out of the school and go to her house. Alair raised his hand when they were being sorted. He said that he wanted to train how to become an archer. The teacher tried to disagree and said that he would make a great mage, but he was certain that he wanted to learn how to use a bow and arrow. When the teacher reluctantly agreed to his decision, the boy looked at Caden, smiled, and said, "There, now you're not alone." (4)

Alair asked Caden to make a target on a tree. After she did that, Alair attempted to hit it right on the mark. He steadied his bow, and let go of his arrow, and he hit the bullseye.

"Wow, Alair, you're one of the only people I know who knows how to use a bow. How come you're not learning magic like the other people?"

"I can ask you a similar question, Caden. Why are you so bad with magic?"

"Hey! That was mean to say!"

"It's true though, isn't it?"

Caden shot a glare to Alair, "Fine. I'll say that it is, but you haven't answered _my_ question. How come you're using a bow and arrow?"

"I just felt like it. I didn't want to be like the others and learn how to use magic. Sometimes weapons like these are stronger than magical weapons."

"You're smart. I can see that you might be famous."

"And I can see that you might be famous too, by being a person from Etruia who's horrible at using magic."

"Stop that!!!" she said kicking him on the leg.

"Ow! That hurts!"

"Well it should! You deserve to be hit harder though by all the mean things that you've said to me in the past too!"

"I mean that as a compliment though! You didn't let me finish!"

"Well then… what do you have to say?"

"So, the second part was…"

----------

Caden chuckled.

_"Alair's house. After that time, he became one of my closest friends.. Actually, him and his parents have been our 'family friends' ever since I was born. But after that time when he switched from studying anima to using a bow and arrow, I think I started to like him more."_

She looked over at the house, again, and walked up to the door and knocked. No one answered. She looked around and saw her brother pass by.

"Hey, Greg, do you remember Alair?"

"How can I forget him? He was talking a lot about you after you left. He really liked you."

"Greg, that's rather rude for you to say since he's not here. How come you're telling me right now? Don't you think he told you because he wanted to keep it a secret?"

"Well, not anymore. Al left the village about two years after you did. Hasn't come back yet."

"… I… I know what happened to him."

"And…?"

"I passed by him one day. But when I saw him, he was dead."

"He died?!"

She nodded her head.

"How? He couldn't have died in battle. We've sparred so many times before, trying to prepare him to depart."

"Ironically, the last scars that he received were magic wounds; mainly anima magic and elder magic."

"Dammit, how could this have happened?"

"As I've heard from someone who was last with him, Alair was defending someone." Caden was at a blank as well thinking of what to say afterwards. Of all the fighters in the village, Alair was a hard worker since he used a bow and arrow instead of relying on nature. He was actually proud of the choice he made. There was actually one argument that the class had when they were older about what type of magic was the best tome and weapon to use: anima, light, or dark. People asked Alair what he thought, and his confident response was, "I can't really decide on that since I'm not a magic user. If I had a choice, I would say that archery is better." With his reply followed a swift smile. "Isn't that right, Caden? Magic isn't the best way to fight, right?"

Now that she thought of how Alair was, she's figured that Alair has liked Caden for a very long time. Caden tried to remember another time when he seemed like Alair liked her. She was remembering the time when she was about to depart. Only hers and Alair's family knew that Caden was going to leave the village for a long absence. She remembered that when Alair was saying good-bye, he embraced her for a while, and she felt overjoyed and sad that she won't be seeing him for a long time that she started to cry. Thinking about sad memories wanted to make her cry, so she tried to not think about it at the moment. She felt ashamed that she hasn't figured that out until now that Alair liked her knowing that she's a tactician and all. She wanted to beat herself up because of that.

"How can you be sure that it was Al when you saw him?"

"I didn't know who it was when I actually saw the body, but he did look familiar. But as I went on, I just remembered who he was. It _had_ been five years since I last saw him, so his appearance changed a little. He became very handsome. So, why did he leave the village?"

"Same as you, he said that he wanted to become famous. He didn't want to stay in one place, so he felt like traveling."

"And now I know that he didn't reach that dream…" Caden said in a sort of gloomy tone. "_Probably his reason for leaving could've been more than just trying to become famous. Alair wouldn't leave for that just reason. He would think stuff like this thoroughly. What motivated him to do this? _ Where are his parents?"

"On a mission. They left a week ago."

"We're going to have to break the news to them sooner or later about their son."

"I knew you would say that. I think that it would be best if you told them, since you were the one who last saw him."

"I didn't see him alive."

"But still, you were the last who saw him."

_"Ugh… it will be hard to do this… but I have no other choice._ Do you know when they're coming back?"

"It's kind of unknown at the moment, but I'm thinking that they might be here… almost the same time when Mom and Dad come back. Maybe a couple of days after they come back."

"Right… well, I'll be staying here for a while, so I know that I'll be here to deliver the news to them. _Boy, just thinking about telling him is hard. Just wait until I have to actually tell them, that'll be twice or even three times as hard._"

----------

_It was the morning before Caden's and Matthew's departure. Matthew, of course not sleeping as much as the others, was walking around the halls of Castle Ostia, almost as if he was on night patrol. Just as he was about to turn in, he ran into the future Ostian Marquess._

_"Good evening to you, young master. How fare you in this time of night?" _

_"Ah, Matthew, just the person I was looking for."_

_"You were in need of my presence, young master?"_

_"Matthew, you knew that I was lying in front of Caden saying that I didn't have any missions for you."_

_"Of course I did. You would know me better than that. So what kind of mission do you want me to venture on during my travels with Caden?"_

_"Well, Matthew, I still feel uneasy about defeating Nergal. Remember what Athos said?"_

_"You know it better than I do."_

_"Please do some snooping around the towns and villages to see if anything has been out of the ordinary. If you find anything interesting, send a message to me, you got that?"_

_"Understood, young master."_

_"Alright, now I wish you have a good time going to Etruia."_

_"Thank you, young master."_

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End of Chapter 14: Five Year Difference

**Author's Note:**

1) I've had that feeling before when I sleep somewhere else, and then sometimes I forgot that I was sleeping somewhere else other than my room, haha. Like one time when I was sleeping on my brother's bed because I was playing too much video games T-T (He half the time sleeps in the living room because the couch in there is comfortable), but the next morning I wake up, I see stuff that I don't put in my room, and then with my delayed reactions, I figure out that I'm in my brother's room, haha.

2) I'm kind of like that when I wake up, having a slightly different personality. Usually I'll have to wake up and wait 15 minutes before I'm fully awake, then I can actually get up from my bed at a good start. If I get up before 15 minutes or when someone wakes me up rudely, I'm usually grumpy for another half an hour. I found that out myself because of my siblings, haha.

3) I actually have a teacher currently who does that. He abbreviates my name Vic and other people like Steph, Britt, Kat, Syd, etc.

4) I can't really say that that's how the magic users get the ability to use their magic, but I guess that learning a type of magic is something that you need to study and practice if you want to excel at it. You know, it's like how when mages become sages, they learn how to use staves, and when clerics become bishops, they learn how to use light magic.


	15. A Moment in Time

**::Panics:: GAH I AM SO SORRY EVERYONE FOR NOT UPDATING IN FOREVER!!!!!! I KNOW THAT IT'S NOT A MONDAY BUT I FEEL SO BAD FOR LEAVING THIS ON HIATUS!!! T.T**

Really… there were a lot of things that have kept me side-tracked all this time. I did mean it that I _will_ get this story done… it's… just that I don't know how long… that'll be…

And as I've noticed, It's been a year (and one and a half months) since the first chapter was posted!

**About this chapter: **This whole chapter is in the past between Caden and Bayle. Usually I would put Caden's past in italics, but since I'm telling you right now that this chapter is in the past, I don't have to do that.

So now that that's done, on with the story!

----------

**Chapter 15: A Moment in Time**

"There are two ways to get into Sacae; one way is faster than the other. The first way is to head northeast straight into Sacae, and the other way is to head southeast into Lycia, and then work our way through to get into Sacae. There is a slight mountain range if we go northeast though."

"It wouldn't be very fun if we just headed northeast. Boy, you sure know your way around this area. Have you been traveling a lot?"

"No. My father has a map of Elibe. Before I left, I studied the map as best as I could."

"Wow, you have a good memory. Maybe I should rely on you when I'm ever confused about something."

"I wouldn't say I'm good. I am just starting to train to become a tactician. Anyways, why go through Lycia?"

"Either way we take, we'll still end up in Sacae. Does it matter which route to take?"

"Yes, one is faster than the other."

"What's so _bad_ about going through Lycia?" he asked as he raised an eyebrow.

"From Lycia, if we head north, we'll be traveling through a mountain range. There are a lot of bandits there, and I don't want to face them. But… _why_ do you want to go to Lycia so badly?"

"I want to go back to Thria for a while. I don't feel like I've improved enough to travel further."

Caden sighed. She thought, _"So he went on this journey unprepared? That's very unwise for someone to do that."_ A giggle emitted from her mouth.

"So, what do you think? I'm asking _you_… do you want to go to Lycia?"

"It does not matter to me where we go. I'm just a traveler, so the more places we go, the better."

"Alright then, it's settled. We're going to Thria!"

What was going through his mind? She had no idea. The only things she could think of are that he was homesick, or he thought of that on a whim._ "Lycia, the closest nation to us would be Ostia. If I remember correctly, Thria is just east of Ostia. I've learned little of Lycia, so it will be an interesting travel for me."_

-----

I've really learned a lot about Bayle as we were walking. He has a very cheerful personality, not ashamed to admit his mistakes. But when he needs to be serious, he _can_ be, and when he wanted an answer, he wouldn't constantly ask the question, but persuade and intimidate the other to do so. It was a personality that I envied… a personality that I wanted to have. But I guess the person who I liked so much having that kind of personality, I didn't mind… I actually liked that even more.

After walking for so long, we have finally made it into Thria's land. How long has it been since we've reached Lycia? Two weeks? Three at most? Anyways, Bayle said that we're almost at his village. It's been two months since he left Thria; the villagers welcomed him back with open arms.

"Bayle-nii!" I heard a high-pitched voice around the corner, sounding like it was coming from a child. I found out soon after that I was correct. The girl looked about the age of 5 or 6.

"Hey, Mina!" Bayle picked up the girl that ran towards her and hugged her as if she was a stuffed animal. The girl seemed like she was doing the same. "Oh yeah! Caden, this is my sister, Mina. Mina, this is my friend, Caden."

Sister? I've been traveling with him for all this time and he had never mentioned that he had a sister! I nodded to Mina, not knowing how to interact with children. I lightly smiled and greeted, "Hello, Mina." She replied back shyly, almost looking at me with a hint of envy for being around Bayle in his recent "shenanigans."

"How 'bout we talk inside? As much as I want to show you around, I need to sit down for a while."

"That's fine with me."

We went inside, being greeted with open arms; his parents looking at me as if he picked a good one, haha. Blushing at the comment, I took a slight step behind him in hiding. He escorted me to a free chair, and he sat in the one opposite of that.

After some general conversation, Mina had walked up to us again, climbing onto her brother's lap. "Hey, Bayle-nii," his sister yelled with delight, "I thought you were going and I wouldn't see you for a long time."

"Oh I see how it is. You don't want me here," he said sarcastically, "Well then, I guess I should leave." He moved Mina to his side and started to stand up. Mina then grabbed his robe before he left, clinging onto him, acting like an anchor.

"No! You can't go, Bayle-nii! You just got here!"

Bayle chuckled. "I was just joking, Mina. I'm not going to leave until a couple of days."

"That's good. Hey, do you like anybody?"

He smiled and let out an airy laugh, sitting back in the chair, placing Mina in his lap again. "Huh? When'd you think of that question? You're too young to ask me!"

"Brother! I wanna know! Plus, I'm not too young to ask that question! I'm five!"

"Haha! Fine, fine. Hm… let's see…" He looked up and tapped his chin. "Yes, I do like someone, and I really like her."

Mina looked very interested in her brother's words, leaning closer to him. "Does she like you?"

"Well, I don't know that. Why don't you ask her?" he said pointing at me.

My heart skipped a beat. Ha, _very_ clever, Bayle. After Mina had looked over to me, she slid off of her brother's lap and walked up to me.

"Caden, do you like Bayle-nii?"

… I knew this was coming, and now I can't deny it. Just thinking about confessing that I like Bayle made me laugh. Maybe it was because I'm confessing it to her sister when Bayle was in earshot? Either way, I smiled at Mina, not wanting to lie to kids.

"Yes, I really like Bayle. I like him a lot."

I looked at Bayle to see his expression on his face. When my eyes met his, he smiled sweetly at me…

… _Trickster_…

"It would be nice having you as a sister, Caden!"

I looked surprised and shifted in my seat. Chuckling, I answered, "Mina, I don't know if that is going to happen. That's going a little too far into the future for me."

She pouted, "Alright then."

I looked at Mina and smiled, patting her head so that she could remain in her high spirit. She smiled back at me.

"Hey, Mina, why don't you go out and hang out with some of your friends? I see them out there, and they're probably going to get you to come out soon."

"Um... okay!"

Once Mina had walked out of the room, Bayle glanced over to me, with a suspicious look in his eyes. "So…" He crossed his arms and put one leg over the other. He stayed quiet, leaving his word open-ended. I already knew why, he already knew why. I turned my head a little to avoid eye contact, feigning ignorance, "... Yes?"

"Oh don't play dumb with me. Just say it." There was seriousness in his voice, but it wasn't too harsh that it was intimidating. I wouldn't fall for his persuasion as I've seen his patterns.

Somehow, I just felt like going around in circles because I didn't want to say the words he wanted to hear… yet. "Say what, exactly?" I questioned.

He closed his eyes and chuckled as he flipped his hair. "So we're playing _that_ game now, aren't we?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "If it seems that way, then yes." I smiled slyly at him, eyes looking innocent.

He uncrossed his arms and legs, standing up from the chair and coming towards me. He leaned down, extending an arm and placing a hand on the back of the seat I was sitting in. Our faces were only a foot apart. He looked at me with a dissatisfied expression, smiling, not buying my innocence. "Well then, if you're going to be stubborn about it, shall _I_ show you?"

Provoking him, I leaned forward. "Fine then… show me what _I'm_ supposed to be saying to you."

He smiled at me, eyes narrowing. "That's what I wanted to hear." He started leaning in further. I closed my eyes, soon after feeling his lips upon mines.

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End of Chapter 15: A Moment of Time

**Author's Note: **

I haven't mentioned Bayle in a while, so I figured that this should make up for him not being there.

This chapter is TOO SHORT and probably sounds too fast paced of a chapter for a long break. I felt so bad for doing this, you get a second chapter:D (plus, I might add more to this one when I think of it)


	16. It's a Raid!

… Something out of the ordinary! (Well, about me… which is actually true. VERY true, haha.) It's a quiz I took… and this was the result I got. The quiz title was "What kind of writer are you?" If you want to take it, go to google, then type in : blogthings – what type of writer should you be?

"You should be a film writer.

You don't just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind. You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life. Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling. And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen."

Anyways, back to the story:D

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**Chapter 16: A Raid Has Come!**

"I've come back!" the cheerful thief announced to Caden and her brother.

"Where'd you go?!"

He wagged his finger in front of her. "That will remain a mystery to you."

"Matthew…" She sighed as she knew that there wasn't a way for her to talk him out of confessing; He was cleverer than her. "Matthew, you shouldn't be working! I want you to spend some time resting. You should be spending your time doing whatever you want."

"I didn't say I was working," he said with confidence.

Half the time it was difficult for Caden to figure out if he was lying or not. She clenched her fist and held it up as if she was about to playfully punch him in the arm. Matthew still stood in front of her, knowing that if she was going to scold him, she would be passive. The tactician refrained upon doing her next action, pointing a finger to him with a "you win this time" look.

Matthew looked slyly at her. "Hm, giving up this time?" he joked.

"N-No…" She would be persistent at times, but when she knew she couldn't win the argument, she backed down. It wasn't a good trait to have when you were a tactician, but she knew that there were certain circumstances where you didn't have to act like your profession.

She turned around and crossed her arms. "Fine. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. After all, you _are_ Ostia's spy, and very good keeping things confidential."

She half meant her sentence, but the other half was hopefully a play on reverse psychology, which she knew wouldn't work on a talented and skilled spy like him.

"Well then, our conversation is over now then," he said a little lyrically, walking past her to sit on the couch.

She turned towards the couch, taking a seat next to him. "Hey Matthew, have you ever let your guard down?"

Matthew looked towards the tactician. "Why do you ask?"

"Well… I don't know, just making assumptions from your robe that you're wearing. I don't think I've ever seen you with it off. And I also think I've overheard you talking to Guy once… about how Guy was trying to sneak up on you… and how you snuck up on him… when he was sleeping…" (1)

He chuckled when she mentioned his conversations with Guy. "Well, with all your observation, you should probably know the answer to that."

She slightly hated that how Matthew would leave this as trivial matter instead of answering her directly. Yet she liked figuring things out. Based on his encounters with Guy, and how Matthew would wake up earlier than her, she was confident that he wouldn't let his guard down. Asking him would end without him answering her if she was correct or not, so she kept it to herself.

----------

It has been a week since they had first came to Keinkurt. Things seemed a little unordinary, but in a good way. Even though she could be doing the same if she was in Pherae, Ostia, or Caelin, she was at her birthplace, seeing her old friends and neighbors. Sometimes she would walk around and catch up with the folks to see what she had missed, other times she would stay in the comfort of her own home, enjoying the time that she had with her family, and especially the times that she spends with Matthew.

Caden was a little upset though how Matthew would leave the village from time to time, going on his "secret missions" as she called it. She felt like a house wife when he would come back, her pestering him with questions as to where he was and whatnot.

"Well then, my wife, have more faith for your husband!" Matthew joked around once, which made Caden blush.

"Matthew, you shouldn't joke around like that," she replied as she had a smile on her face, slightly embarrassed about the situation.

"Well, didn't you say that you acted like a wife when I would come back?" He crossed his arms, entertained by what kind of responses she could come up with now.

"Well yes but… it just feels a little… awkward when you say that. We're… not married so… you know, it's just feels… a little… uncomfortable." She stopped herself from going any further with her explanation; she noticed that she had indirectly confessed to Matthew about how she feels about him.

Matthew uncrossed his arms and patted Caden's head. "Well I guess I can accept your explanation for now. If it makes you _that_ uncomfortable, I'll keep on calling you Caden." When Caden looked up to him, he had a cheery smile on his face.

_"… I would have waited for a couple of more days but now this can't wait,"_ she thought, "Um, Matthew, would you like to go with me somewhere?"

His smile was still on his face when he opened his eyes. "Sure."

The place that she wanted to take Matthew was ten minutes away from the village. Up a hill and walking against a stream, they made it to the base of a waterfall. She stared at its beauty, realizing that it had been a very long time that she had last been there.

"I usually use this place to reflect. My brother, Alair, and I would go here when we wanted to get away from everything for just a couple of hours at most. Whether it was that we had an argument with our parents, or just felt like relaxing, we would go here."

She walked over to the rocks that were around the pool that the waterfall would dump into. She took her seat on one of the bigger rocks, taking off her boots so that she could soak her feet in the water. She turned back to Matthew, gesturing her hands for Matthew to come closer and join her. Matthew complied with her request, taking his seat on one of the rocks with his back to the pool as he didn't want to take off his boots.

She exhaled loudly as if she was clearing her thoughts. She looked towards Matthew; he hadn't said a word since they had reached this place. "So what do you think?"

"Maybe I should appreciate things like this more."

"You should! Take advantage of this break that Lord Hector has given you. Relax a little, as I said." She leaned on Matthew's shoulder who seemed to not mind at all. She was about to dose off, before she felt Matthew shift a little. She sat up straight again, turned around on her rock so that she could dry her feet and put her boots back on.

"There was something else that I wanted to show you."

She stood up and smoothed her robe. Matthew stood up right behind her as she made her way to the side of the waterfall. The waterfall wasn't steep, and the side looked like it was built so that people could climb up to the top, which was her intention. The climb wasn't that hard for her as she had done this many times before. It wasn't hard for Matthew as well as he was very dexterous and used to doing these kinds of things.

The top was a sight to see, looking outwards to the vast field of green grass. She pointed out to Matthew that he could also see her village from there. But as she observed her village, she saw something out of the ordinary.

… A figure… two figures actually. From where they were, she couldn't tell if they were just passer-bys or not.

"Matthew, what do they look like to you?"

Matthew squinted his eyes a little to get a better look. "Hm… two people in magician's robes, as it looks like."

Caden was a little worried as she had no idea who those can be. She decided that she wanted to make her way back to the village, just to see if everything was safe.

To her surprise, she knew who those two figures were when she had reached the village. The two figures averted their eyes from talking to the village magistrate and Allard when one of them saw from the corner of his eye that there were others coming.

Once they had laid eyes on each other, Caden froze. It was two people that she wasn't very fond of… the ones who she had remembered the names to after that one faithful day near the entrance of the village.

"Ah, Caden… how nice it is to see you again." His voice was very cold and empty, filling anyone with trepidation upon hearing his voice.

"… Dugan…"

An evil smile had curved upon his lips, "So glad that you have remembered me."

"Caden, you know him?" Allard had asked as he was listening to their greeting.

"Not at all. F-… Allard, let me handle talking to him." She avoided from letting Dugan know that they were related. Who knows what would happen if he knew this information? "Dugan, what are you doing here?"

"I just came by to say 'hi,' it doesn't hurt anybody."

His words had hit Caden's nerve. Who was he, trying to act like they were friends?! She clenched her fist as their conversation continued. "Don't act like we were _ever_ friends. Now state your business here!"

"You're being a little harsh there, Caden."

"State your business here," she said with more strictness and seriousness to her voice. She wasn't in the mood for playing games with him.

"Hm, fine…" He lifted up his right arm in the air. "My business… I came here for something I want that you have." He snapped his fingers together, and figures appeared from nowhere.

"_Morphs?!"_ she yelled in her head in surprise. "Allard, have everyone prepare for battle!" Caden took her own sword out of its sheath, and pointed the tip towards Bayle. She was going to swing her sword downwards, but upon pulling it back, Robbin had grabbed the sword's tip, restraining Caden from swinging. Caden looked back as Robbin had wagged her finger at her.

At the corner of her eye, she saw another figure running towards the village, jumping over the fence. "B-Bayle!!?" she yelled in surprise, yet she couldn't do anything about him with her current situation.

With clenched teeth, Caden pulled back her sword and faced Robbin this time. Matthew had his dagger ready in his hand for oncoming attackers. Matthew was caught in between two choices: helping Caden or going after Bayle.

The ambush seemed to be getting the better of the villagers. They were trying their best they could to try and keep all of the morphs from entering. Even Caden's father seemed to have a difficult time with this.

Caden had a thought that was hard to admit… _"Dugan is a powerful shaman, almost as powerful as his father. He could become even more powerful if he had the same dark tome as Nergal."_

Chances of them winning were slim. The villagers seemed to be able to fend off the morphs from coming inside, and the ones that intruded were taken care of the other magic users. However, Caden and Matthew were far from safe from where they were standing, yet no morphs went after them. Caden focused her attack on Robbin, later did Matthew tell Caden that he could take care of her. Caden then moved her way to Dugan. Dugan's power was great, but to her confusion, all his magic was focused on the other villagers.

"Hey! I'm in front of you!" Caden yelled to him, attacking once again. She managed to brush his arm with the tip of the blade, cutting the fabric. Yet with her provocation, Dugan still did not aim at her.

Dugan took out the most powerful tome that he carried around with him. _"He said for me to use this only in emergencies. Well, you would call this as an emergency right now, wouldn't you, Father?" _

He opened the Fenrir tome, channeling even more magic that what he usually used, chanted the elder magic's language, and pointed it at Allard. Right then, six strange symbols surfaced around Allard. The symbols burned a purple fire, then compressed towards the sage, damaging him. Allard was burning in the purple fire, he yelled in pain trying to extinguish it. When the fire subsided, he slumped on the ground, hardly keeping himself up with his hands and knees; purple residue was left as scars.

"Father!" yelled both Caden and Greg.

Caden was about to run up to her father until Matthew held Caden's robe from her going.

"Matthew, please let go of me."

"You can't let that get in the way of your fighting. Your brother knows that too. Your mother is the only one who can try to save him now," he replied.

Caden tried to hold back the tears that were going to come out, only some managed to escape. She quickly wiped them away and focused on her fighting.

"Dugan, you bastard!" Caden yelled running up to him readying to swing her sword.

She managed to succeed with one hit on his arm out of all the other attempts that she executed. He was too fast for her, but she tried to fight him anyways. Dugan hastily tucked the Fenrir tome back into his robe and took out a weaker elder magic tome, the Flux, and used that for the last duration of the battle.

Near the end of the fight, Dugan and Robbin only had minor cuts and bruises. Bayle ran out of one of the houses in the village with something in his hand.

"The Earth Seal!" Caden yelled.

Why didn't she see this coming? How did he get into the house and steal the seal? Before she could make a move, Bayle was already in front of the young shaman and sage.

"Excellent, Bayle. The mission is complete for now." Dugan looked at Allard on the ground, "Not only did we complete the mission, I've gotten more fun out of it."

The three of them teleported out of the battlefield and the rest of the enemies that attacked the village disappeared like dust.

"Allard!" Teena yelled.

The Earth Seal was stolen from their village, but that was only a small problem. The worst on the verge of happening…

Caden's world stood still.

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End of Chapter 16: It's a Raid!

… cliffhanger?

**Author's Note**

1) Part of Matthew's and Guy's support conversations, B and A, lol.

This whole thing seems a little fast paced to me… but keep in mind that in mind that I felt really bad for keeping this story on hold for this long and wanting to get at least two chapters done in one day. (.//.")


	17. Mourning

It kind of still surprises me how there are new readers when this story doesn't update that much... I'm saying it as a good thing. :3

Ehehe… surely it should be a time when I've run out of excuses, but I have one more excuse for you guys (sort of): about a couple of weeks after I posted the previous chapter, I happened to misplace my flash drive; the very flash drive that I had all the chapters that I've already written and hadn't posted yet.

Yeah, I should feel ashamed of myself, but I've already gotten over losing it… though with most of what I wrote for this… I'll just have to do it by memory [sigh. It's a good thing though, that now that I look at it, there are some parts that I feel embarrassed at and thought to myself "How did I think of this?!" hehe.

Not to worry though! This chapter should temporarily fulfill your TacticianMatthew fluff! Onward!

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**Chapter 17: Mourning**

The village stayed pretty quiet after the raid. Half of the reason was because of daybreak and people were sleeping. The other would be mourning for the loved ones, knowing that they can never return. The majority of the village considered the tactician's house to be the quietest; their major loss was also the village's loss.

Coping with another isn't one of Caden's strong points. Usually these times wouldn't happen, but when it did, Caden would always want to be by herself. And when she wanted independence, Greg would honor her wish.

Matthew walked out to the front porch. The air still reeked of blood and weapons, but it wasn't as much as earlier. He looked upon the natural structure where he knew Caden was. After what Caden did when she departed, Matthew was partly indecisive: thinking about if he should try to comfort her or not.

-----

"Father…" both Caden and Greg uttered.

Devastation took over when the enemies left. The villagers were already working on cleaning up the place. As for a few of the villagers, the life they had lost had torn them completely.

Teena wept upon her husband's body for the longest time as her children stood around the body. Gregory, now the man of the family, tried to hold his tears back as he was avoiding staring at the body. Caden was thankful that she had Matthew right now. She turned towards him not moving an inch, resisting the urge to cry. She swept her hand over her forehead. Matthew was certain that he heard her sniff once before she turned to leave the village.

-----

"I think you should go," Greg said as he opened the door to enter the front porch. Matthew looked over to the sage; the light outside was dim but he could tell that he had indeed shed some tears. "It's hard for Caden to cope. Right now she's probably thinking that this was in her head." Greg looked up to that same structure. "As far as I know, I won't be able to support her in this kind of situation. She needs someone who she can talk to that's outside of the family… someone who she trusts very well."

Matthew looked down to the grass to think. Greg was right, and he was leaning towards taking his advice. Greg was practically reading Matthew's thoughts as he turned to him and smirked. "You look like you understand this pain. Caden and I haven't experienced this before as you can see, but she needs your comfort. I would like to go, but since it's you and me here, my mother needs me more."

"Greg…" Matthew nodded. "Alright, I'm trusting you on this."

Greg chuckled. "Just go. I know my sister well, though you know her more recent self than me." After that being said, Greg went back inside the house as Matthew made his way to the place where Caden was.

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_"Silly me… I forgot a torch,"_ Caden thought to herself once she had gotten to her spot. For this time, she gathered the dry branches from the trees that weren't dampened by the water. And since there weren't any stones that could light a spark, she took out the book of fire that she kept in her robe (though hardly used). She stared at the book's cover, at least what she could see of it. Caden took a deep breath and opened the book. Once she did, she drew the runes as best as she could and lit the small pile of branches.

She raised her eyebrows in surprise as her poor magic skills helped her once again. She closed the book and looked at it.

"… Thankfully you work when I need you the most," she chuckled. She tucked the book back under her robe and leaned on the rocks that were nearest to the fire. She hugged her legs looking at the fire. It was obvious what was going through her mind, but her method was to occupy her head with other things.

She thought of anything that didn't have to do with the village, or the fact that he hadn't seen her father in such a long time. She tried not to think about her past. But as she kept on thinking about it, her mind always wandered back. She knocked on her head a few times in frustration. She closed her eyes and pulled her robe around her tighter slouching on the rock so she could get more comfortable.

And just as she was about get some sleep…

"… Caden?" uttered a voice that wasn't too far away.

Caden slowly opened her eyes and looked towards the source of the voice. Just as the figure was visible, she saw that it was none other than Matthew. Great… she knew why he came. She sat up again and leaned on the rock and bent her knees closer to her body as she kept her hands inside of her robe. She was watching Matthew as he glanced at the fire when he walked past and took a seat near Caden.

"Hey," he said as he had a subtle smirk on his face.

_"Is that all you have to say…?"_ she thought. She didn't say anything back to Matthew, but stayed quiet while blankly staring at the fire.

Matthew looked the way where Caden was looking. "Well it looks like you're alright here, you got everything you need."

There was a silence in between them, but it was hard to tell if it was comfortable or not.

"… Is this how you were when Leila died?" Caden spoke while still looking towards the heart of the fire.

His smile died down a little when she mentioned Leila. "That's difficult to explain," he started. "When we found Leila on the shores of Valor, I _was_ devastated. But of course I couldn't mourn for her at that time because we were in the middle of a battle."

_"And he probably wishes that he could've done more for her,"_ Caden thought trying to think what Matthew must've thought in his head.

Caden shifted herself so that her arms were crossed on her knees as she bent forward. "You loved Leila, didn't you?" It was a rhetorical question on both their parts and they knew the answer. "Uh… sorry. I didn't have to bring that up."

A few seconds passed, and then Matthew decided upon bringing up what Caden was trying to avoid. "What about your father?"

Caden hesitated, and then for the first time during their conversation, she turned towards Matthew. "What about him?"

"Well…" Though he brought up that subject, he didn't know how to continue it. "With Leila, at first I didn't think that I would, but I mourned for her when we were on our way back to the main island."

She faced her head straight once again and looked downward. "… I already told you about my father. He was always on top of things… he could always handle any situation, even menial disputes that my brother and I had when we were younger.

"My father gave me vital information about what I could expect about the wilderness and how it would affect me. He showed me useful fighting skills, ones that he learned when he was on a mission. My father…" Caden started to feel her eyes being filled with water. She forced herself not to blink too hard to let a tear drop. Instead, she dabbed her eyes until she couldn't feel the water gathered up on her bottom eye lid. "My father was the first one to accept me being a tactician.

"… And then I come back four years later. I only had a couple weeks to spend with him." Caden had a straight face continuing on what she had to say. "I loved my father. I loved him a lot even though I had never said it to him. Dugan is unfair. Why did he come here in the first place when it looked like he wasn't here to steal our village's prized possession?"

Caden answered her own sentence as she felt more tears that obscured her vision. "… Dugan wants to make me miserable. He wants me to feel the way that he is now… avenging his father, facing him with rage. He could've easily killed me back then when we met him, I wish that he went for me instead of my father!"

"Your father gave up his life for you and your family. It's ill to think that."

An empty smile was etched on her face. "Yes you think it's ill, but what am I supposed to say if the enemy that has been going after me kills someone who's precious to me? How do you want me to respond when I feel like shit?"

"Well first, I want you to know that your father's death isn't your fault." (1)

Matthew knew that it would trigger something if he said that. Caden felt a pain in her heart hearing Matthew say that; a tear had finally fallen, sliding down her cheek. She wiped the tear away before it had gotten further, but another tear glided along the same track.

"M-Matthew… don't say that… the ambush was my fault completely," she replied as she sniffed and wiped another tear.

Matthew didn't say anything back but looked over at Caden as she was suppressing the tears. "You don't have to hold back."

_"Oh, but I do,"_ she thought. Crying was something that she rarely did. But when it happened, she almost never cried in front of someone; she would also feel embarrassed about it. It came to the part for her to close her eyes and force the tears back. But with a great feeling in her chest, she couldn't hold back. Great, she felt that the tears would never stop going down.

Matthew placed an arm around Caden as Caden let the tears dampen the sleeves on her robes. A lot of emotions went through her; sometimes she was thinking to herself that she shouldn't be crying, but lying to herself is another trait that Caden had trouble with.

Caden cried through the night until her small fire was turned to ashes.

All the crying that she did made her too weak to stand for herself; Matthew decided to carry her back to the village on his back. It was a nice walk back; many stars were in the sky, crickets were chirping, the trees were rustling in the soft wind, and the beautiful moon illuminated the silhouettes of the trees and the village. Upon the way there, Matthew had noticed that she had gone to sleep. He smiled to himself; he had finally accomplished what he came here for.

----------

Caden had woken up during the trip back when a leaf brushed across her face and she used a hand to brush off the feeling that was on her cheek. Matthew turned his head back to see Caden at the corner of his eye.

"Oh, you're awake. Sorry if I woke you up."

"Mnn… It's alright. I don't think you've done anything to wake me," she answered in a raspy voice.

"Alright. Well we're almost back at your village, so sit tight for a while," Matthew replied looking back to what was in front of him.

Even though she knew that Matthew couldn't see it, Caden nodded. Caden took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She looked forward too, seeing how close they were. Another moment passed, and then she wrapped her arms around Matthew and rested her head on the back of his shoulder. "Thank you, Matthew." It was one of those déjà vu moments once Matthew heard Caden say that. But instead of thinking of it, he simply responded with, "Any time."

Caden closed her eyes when her eye lids were heavy again, but since they were close to the house, she was forcing herself to stay awake. Matthew opened the door quietly in case the others were sleeping. They assumed that the other two were since most of the lights were out (Greg was considerate enough leaving the fire lit on the porch so Caden and Matthew could see).

Matthew was making his way upstairs so that he could put Caden down on her bed, but one he was at front of her bedroom door, Caden uttered that she could handle it herself. "Don't worry. You don't have to do everything. I can take it from here." He knew that Caden wasn't in an argumentative mood, so he agreed and crouched down so that Caden's feet reached the floor. Caden was swaying at first when she didn't have Matthew to support him, so she laid a hand on the door knob instead. She looked up at Matthew, seeing his silhouette and half of his face from the dim light from downstairs. She then looked down again staring at nothing in particular.

"You know… you can sleep in the guest room," she answered pointing down the hallway to a door, "I don't think Mom or Greg would mind. I mean, it'll save you the energy of walking down the stairs again to the couch… plus a mattress is more comfortable compared to the couch."

It sounded like Caden was making an excuse for Matthew to stay on the second floor, but she didn't mean for it to be. Although slightly visible, Matthew was smirking. "Alright, I'll sleep in the guest room."

There was a brief silence between them. Caden didn't want to go to sleep yet, she was unsatisfied for some reason.

"… Thanks again, Matthew," she said in a soft voice so that it wouldn't echo in the empty hallway.

With this thanks, his smirk was still on his face, and he responded with a slight nod. "Get some sleep, Caden. It'll be good for you."

She smiled back to him, and answered with "Mhm." Caden felt like something was missing. But… what was it that made her feel this way? While being sleepy, she couldn't think of the answer with her slow brain.

She looked up at Matthew again, and her heart skipped a beat. Was it because of the atmosphere that made Caden feel this way? Even though, she did what her heart was saying: she placed a hand on Matthew's shoulder and she tiptoed so she could reach higher. She closed her eyes and kissed the edge of Matthew's lips. Upon doing so, her heart skipped a beat, and she felt that her face was getting warm.

Matthew seemed pretty surprised by Caden's action. It wasn't one of those bad surprises, but… unexpected. Before Caden could hardly speak, she looked down to the ground again, and said "… Good night, Matthew." She opened the door to her room. And when she walked in, Matthew replied with "Yeah… good night." Caden waited to close her door until he turned around going on his way to the guest room.

She lied on her bed for a while, thinking back to the kiss that she gave to Matthew. Just thinking about it made her heart skip a beat once again, but she now felt content so that she could get a good night's sleep.

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End of Chapter 17: Mourning

Author's note:

... Fluff. X3;;; I still need to work on that. And anywho, I hope this was a decent sized chapter for my absence.

1) Uh… well I'm kind of breaking the mood while putting this in here but, that line came from Family Guy, haha! It was an episode when Stewie was having troubles with his wife and Brian kept on saying "it's not your fault" to him until he broke down. XD;;


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